Balanced cables have additional circuitry to cancel out noise. They originated in professional recording applications where there was a great potential for noise interference. I would suspect that your equipment has rca connections only. Rca's have the little round connectors that are a little bigger than a pencil head. Balanced connectors are a little smaller than a dime, and have a locking tab. Balanced circuitry is supposed to sound better due to this quietness. I have never directly a/b'd them, but one of my friends who has an extremely high end system (75K worth in a treated room) commented that he could not tell the difference. If you have balanced input/outputs, buy balanced cables, otherwise buy RCA's.
Balanced Interconnects??
Hello, What exactly are balanced vs unbalanced interconnects? I'm looking at some of Audioquests new line of interconnects, particularly the coral, to use as an interconnect between my Rotel integrated amp and CD player. Some of their cables are double balanced and others like the coral are triple balanced.Should these cables be used for special applications or equipment? Any info you guys could provide would be greatly appreciated. My System: Rotel RA-985BX integrated amplifier Musical Concepts modified CD player Vandersteen 2ce Signatures Audioquest type-4 speaker cable 15ft true biwire Shitty Radio Shack interconnects (soon to be replaced) Va