Rg 6 or balanced

[The Dude]

First off maybe someone can shine light on balanced cables, I know they are realy only necessary for longer runs. Is it so much a cable or the way its wired.

Second, I know they are 2 different cables for different things, but I have used rg6 before for interconnects and seemed to work fine I have also used rg59 for interconnects.

Third what am I doing, I am hooking up my comp with a Berhinger fca-202 audio interface it accepts balanced with 1/4" plugs which the room I have it in now I just have a 1/4" to rca adapter but the room I am moving it in I will have a run about 35-40 feet. Didn't know If I would be all right finding some rg6 or going with some balanced cables, and if there is a good source for bulk balanced cable. If I went with this balanced wire I would have put the 1/4" on one end and rca on another just need to see how it needs to be wired up.

[djk]

I have run over 120' with unbalanced lines and with no degradation at all.

I have no problem with the various RG type co-ax cables, but prefer to use the ones with copper center conductors over the ones with copperweld (copper plated steel) for audio.

I ran a 2.2KΩ resistor to terminate the cable at the far end, this will reduce any high frequency loss in a long cable run (probably not needed for your short run).

[Coytee]

Someone might suggest the RG might work for various reasons... or not. I've no clue.

I personally, would use the balanced wire if for no other reason than it will be more flexible than the RG wire. This is presuming that they are both 100% equal to each other for the job.

First off maybe someone can shine light on balanced cables, I know they are realy only necessary for longer runs. Is it so much a cable or the way its wired.

I'd imagine it's a bit of both?

The RG6 wire that I pulled in my house has the single copper (solid) in the middle, surrounded by the 'plastic' layer which then is surrounded by the metal sheath.

The XLR wire that I have (Mogami Neglex) has IIRC, two wires (stranded) in it with some metal sheath around those. Actually, I've not yet terminated the Mogami's so I don't know exactly what's in them...I'm going off some old memory with the Belden XLR wire I used 5 years ago.

[djk]

RG-6/U is a common type of coaxial cable used
in a wide variety of residential and commercial applications. The term
"RG-6" itself is quite generic and refers to a wide variety of cable
designs, which differ from one another in shielding characteristics,
center conductor composition, and dielectric type. "RG" was originally a
unit indicator ("Radio Guide") for bulk radio frequency (RF) cable in
the U.S. military's Joint
Electronics Type Designation System. The suffix "/U" means “for
general utility use.” The number was assigned sequentially. The "RG"
unit indicator is no longer part of the JETDS system (MIL-STD-196E) and
cable sold today under the RG-6 label does not necessarily meet military
specifications. In practice, the term "RG-6" is generally used to refer
to coaxial cables with an 18 AWG center conductor and 75 ohm characteristic
impedance.

The most commonly-recognized variety of RG-6 is cable television
(CATV) distribution coax, used to route cable television signals to and
within homes, and RG-6 type cables have become the standard for CATV,
mostly replacing the smaller RG-59, in recent years.
CATV distribution coax typically has a copper-coated steel center
conductor and a combination aluminum foil/aluminum braid shield,
typically with low coverage (about 60%). RG-6 type cables are also used
in professional video applications, carrying either baseband analog
video signals or serial
digital interface (SDI) signals; in these applications, the center
conductor is ordinarily solid copper, the shielding is much heavier
(typically aluminum foil/95% copper braid), and
tolerances are more tightly controlled, to improve impedance stability.

[The Dude]

I have searched for a better quality Rg-6, and used it to make short run interconnects. I just had a longer run thought it would be more necessary to use balanced. I am interested to see how you installed a resistor on when terminating. I think I will look at prices next to help decide I guess that could make the decission. Doesn't seem to be a big issue, for what I am doing for now I guess even some cheaper rg6 would be all right unless the balanced isn't to expenssive.

Any one know xlr is wired to the 1/4"connectors.

Thanks for the info guys.

NIck