Collection: Audio Cables

Balanced or unbalanced decides how far you can run it

This is the choice that decides whether a room hums. Unbalanced leads — 3.5 mm jack and RCA — are fine over a couple of metres from a laptop to a soundbar, but over longer runs they act as an aerial and pick up mains hum and interference from nearby cabling. Balanced connections, meaning XLR and 6.35 mm TRS, carry the signal twice in opposite polarity so that interference picked up along the way cancels at the far end. For anything crossing a room or a ceiling void, specify balanced and convert at the ends rather than running a long 3.5 mm lead and hoping.

Three-pole and four-pole 3.5 mm plugs are not the same

A TRS plug has three segments and carries stereo audio. A TRRS plug has four and carries stereo plus a microphone — what a headset uses. Put a TRRS headset into a three-pole socket and you get audio with no microphone, which is the usual explanation for someone being inaudible on a call. Laptops with a single combo socket want TRRS; desktops with separate green and pink sockets need a splitter.

TOSLINK is digital, and behaves differently

Optical SPDIF carries a digital signal as light, so it is immune to electrical interference and to ground loops between devices on different circuits — useful between a display and an amplifier. Because the signal is digital, volume is controlled at the receiving end, and the link carries only what the source is configured to output.

Speaker cable is not signal cable

Sold by the reel for amplifier-to-speaker runs, speaker cable is unshielded two-core and is not a substitute for a shielded signal lead — nor the reverse. Match the gauge to the run length and the impedance of the speakers.

Brands

Microconnect, VivoLink, Lindy and StarTech.com, alongside leads from Mercodan, Belkin, Cables Direct and Cisco.

Trade pricing and business accounts are available for UK organisations, and bulk orders are welcome — request a quote.