You're technically supposed to use a 110 Ohm impedance cable. Belden 1800F digital audio cable like what is sold by Blue Jeans Cable has a nominal characteristic impedance of 110 Ohms, for example. It's possible the balanced analog interconnect you already have is 110 Ohms.
Aes-ebu vs. balanced cable
I need to run a cable (male to female) between my dac and a reclocking device. The dac input is labeled aes-ebu. The plugs on both devices look the same as xlr. One cable distributor said to just use a balanced interconnect, which I already have. Others have said I need need a special aes-ebu 110 cable. I don’t really understand such details. Can anyone offer advice on who is right and whether to buy an aes ebu cable? Would it do any harm to tryna balanced interconnect?
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Most XLR analog interconnects are built differently than digital AES/EBU cables. You can use an analog interconnect just fine for AES/EBU, but it is not going to give you as good as performance as a true digital AES/EBU cable. Analog cables have a completely different design goal. Digital cables need to be shielded in a certain way and built with a specific impedance in mind. Solid core conductors in digital cables also help. |
@auxinput follow up question! What about the opposite? I have a DAC with balanced analog outputs and have a pair of Mogami Gold AES/EBU XLR cables. Is there any benefit or improved performance when using a 110 Ohm AES/EBU XLR cable in as a balanced analog interconnect that only requires 75 Ohms? My cable run is 1m. However, what about the same scenario over 25m? Thanks in advance, this has always been a mystery to me. |
@engineears I don't think there is any pro or con associated with using a 110 Ohm impedance cable for analog balanced XLR interconnects. This Sound on Sound article Understanding Impedance has a good section on the 600 Ohm standard and why we don't care about that for consumer analog audio because we use a voltage signal instead of a power signal. |
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