AES/EBU vs 110 ohm balanced

stevelgbch

New Member
Aug 18, 2013
29
1
3
Long Beach, CA
Are they relatively interchangeable? Will I be able to use some 110 Ohm Nordost balanced interconnects I have available or do I have to buy a specialized AES/EBU cable? What makes the difference? Is it the impedance, or somehow is it the wire/wiring that makes the two different? The Nordost sounds just fine to me now but would the other type of cable be even better? I will be using it with a Vivaldi DAC when it comes in the next couple of weeks.
 

Speedskater

Well-Known Member
Sep 30, 2010
941
15
368
Cleveland Ohio
AES/EBU is a robust 110 Ohm balanced interconnect system. The 110 Ohm part is only important in longer interconnect cables. Say well longer than 10 meters.
 

Orb

New Member
Sep 8, 2010
3,010
2
0
Just worth noting you can have specific digital AES/EBU cable and an analogue balanced XLR cable.
Technically they can be the same but many cable manufacturers seem to have differences between their AES-EBU digital XLR and their analogue XLR.

Another aspect balanced can help with is grounding issues/noise, however much depends upon how the electronic component implements their balanced/unbalanced circuitry and sometimes I have found an electronic product may be better with one or the other (especially analogue balanced).
Some electronic manufacturers seem to take more care with their balanced design and implementation while others focus more on unbalanced.
With digital this can also be compounded by the transmission/receiver design and especially how transformer coupled/transformerless is implemented by a manufacturer but not something to get overly focused on IMO as a consumer.

Cheers
Orb
 

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
7,006
512
1,740
Snohomish, WA
www.pugetsoundstudios.com
I'm using AES/EBU cables for all my interconnects, digital and analog.
 

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