Balanced and unbalanced cables

Balanced 1/4" cables have 3 parts, tip, ring, sleeve, while guitar cords and synth cords (at least mine) are unbalanced with 2 parts, tip, sleeve or hot, ground where balanced is I think, called hot, cold, ground. XLRs usually are all balanced unless one of the wires is not connected, which would be odd.

consult the manuals for hardware outputs. My synth is unbalanced but can go into a balanced input, and balanced outputs can go into a unbalanced input, but most of pro-audio connections will be balanced for the hardware, it is only the guitar cord and synth outputs (not MIDI) that are unbalanced.

Home consumer electronics are all unbalanced and -10dBu output. Most pro-audio will have either a switch for -10dBu output or the regular usual pro output of +4dBu.
Most pro stuff goes way higher for total output nowadays, like up to +24dBu for peaks or even so higher. Some will be lower. Depends. Checking the manual is always the best thing to do.

balanced 1/4" are the same thing as "stereo cables," unbalanced 1/4" are the same thing as "instrument cables."

all XLR are balanced cables

Not to quibble, but there is no such thing as a balanced cable.


There are balanced circuits and the proper cable for connecting one up is a shielded twisted pair... although the shielding may not actually be necessary if the CMMR is really good. :-)


Cables used for stereo transmission can either be simple shielded pairs (unbalanced circuit), or a shielded pair of twisted pairs (balanced circuits).


The connectors don't really tell you much about the cable they are connected to... it is useful to regard the cable and connectors as a system.



best regards,
mike

I have one of those Behringer (copy) testers.  It works good but the documentation that came with it is useless.  I carry it in my steel guitar seat, it comes in handy on stage when someone has or thinks they have a bad cable.  Being an ex amp tech they all come to me when they have a problem.