Will a balanced XLR cable make a difference if I only have TRS inputs on my AD?
Not to beat the same dead horse again, but after a quick search I decided to put my cowboy boots on.
I'd like to take various feeds from the board into my rig and mix later, I know where to get special cables and adapters from -- but my question has more to do with ideal cabling.
I've got an EDIROL FA-101 into a Mac Mini, I use the XLR female phantom-power ports to take in ambient mics (all well and good). I've also got eight (yes
TRS (thats 1/4" plug) inputs.
I need TRS (1/4") on my end, but I could take TRS or XLR from the board. So I figure I need a cadre of cables with XLR male or TRS male on the board end, and TRS on my end. Seeing as my input ports are not balanced, is there an advantage to use a real XLR cable?
I plan to purchase 15' to 25' cables (to give my audio engineer breathing room). My gut says I should use:
XLR M --> XLR cable --> XLR M --> XLR F to TRS M
TRS M to XLR F --> XLR M --> XLR cable --> XLR M --> XLR F to TRS M(Does this ensure a balanced signal end to end?)
OR
XLR M --> XLR cable --> TRS M
TRS M to XLR F --> XLR M --> XLR cable --> TRS M(Does this still ensure a balanced signal end to end with one less adapter? Does it depend who makes the cable?)
ps.
Any reason why I shouldn't ziptie my cables together (XLR or TRS cabling)?