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Necessary to ground and XLR interconnect?

In building XLR cables, some designs call for floating a shield from the source end of the cable with no connection to the destination end. If I don't want to use any internal shield, is it necessary to attach anything at all to the negative pins? And if so, is it important to use the same gauge and type of conductors used in the signal wires, or can I go smaller and cheaper? These cables will connect a Wadia CD player directly to monoblocks. Thanks for your advice.
jafreeman

Showing 1 response by pbnaudio

pbnaudio's avatar
pbnaudio
1,615 posts
 
You will get potential for hum if you don't run the shield through - normally pin 1 is ground connect the shield to here both ends. Pin 2 is positive and pin 3 is negative - nothing to do with ground :-) and remember to take a close look at those small numbers 1 and 2 are reversed in relation to 3 from the male to the female XLR

Good luck

Peter
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