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I'm sorry but in this case of the OP that's just plain BS. He's not going to improve his sounds by using balanced cables so I would prefer it if we didn't recommend to him to spend money on something that will do nothing to address his problem. Most common keyboard amps and PA's (if he's going that way) don't even "provide" balanced inputs on line level!

I'm all for getting the best out of your gear, I even exclusively use my own home made cable (Tasker for balanced, Klotz for unbalanced) with Neutriks, but it's all in the application.

Balanced cabling is not BS.

But you are correct SanderXpander, Balanced cabling will not have a very noticable impact to the "Tone" or "Timbre" of the sound.

The Tone/Timbre is greatly impacted by the response of the monitoring equipment and the environment (Room).

Balanced cable will impact noise levels, buzzes, hums etc. only.

If the sound is good through headphones, but just does not cut it through your live sound monitoring system, the problem is (most likely) with your monitoring system.

If the sound is not good through headphones (or just not to your liking) you need to start programming and making adjustment to the source.

Sander: While you are correct in substance, I took the thread at it's face value - "TS or TRS Cables".

Indeed the quality of the amp and speakers make all the difference to the final sound. And AFAIK balanced or unbalanced doesn't make any difference to the quality or depth of the output signal - But - IMO unbalanced cables can introduce hum and hiss, especially when there are other active bits of equipment in the chain - so though using balanced cables won't answer the problem of the Original Poster; I would still recommend using them per se.

I didn't say balanced cables are BS, I use them all the time. I said they were BS with respect to the OP's problem, and I would even argue that in many cases they are unnecessary, though I agree with the "better safe than sorry" mentality. In some cases they will really make no difference at all though, for instance when the amp/mixer you're using doesn't have balanced line-level inputs, which is quite often.

When I first set up my Kronos I just used a couple of old unbalanced cables I had lying around. I noticed that there was a slight annoying buzzing coming from my monitors. I went out and bought a couple of balanced cables Jack TRS to XLR and plugged these directly between the Kronos and Monitors. Perfectly quiet and the buzzing had disappeared.

Balanced cables WILL make a difference to sound quality and remove hums, buzzes and interference. They will not affect the timbre. Also you would need to have balanced inputs on your equipment to take advantage. Some live audio equipment / amps /speakers may not have balanced inputs?

SanderXpander wrote:I didn't say balanced cables are BS, I use them all the time. I said they were BS with respect to the OP's problem, and I would even argue that in many cases they are unnecessary, though I agree with the "better safe than sorry" mentality. In some cases they will really make no difference at all though, for instance when the amp/mixer you're using doesn't have balanced line-level inputs, which is quite often.

I agree there's a point here. The OP says he has "Behringer active floor monitors"

Do those monitors take balanced inputs?

Otherwise, the usage of TRS cables is of no usage to the OP.

Again, it's all in the application. Never once did I argue that balanced cables are always useless.

But for the OP; I don't think those Behringers would even take a balanced signal, but I could be wrong. I will remain with my point that the OP has problems with the timbre, not with hum or buzz, and using TRS cables will do nothing for that even if the Behringers do accept them.

Agreed, but when the OP titles the thread with one topic, they should not expect a different topic dicussion to take place.

And to keep up the off topic discussion;

Star-Quad Balanced Cables tend to perform the best. I personnally perfer Canare Cable, comes in great colors.

sorry don't mean to hum on your buzz.

JPWC:

I personnally perfer Canare Cable, comes in great colors

I tend to use Red cables for the RH channel and Blue for the LH channel. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of using Black and White cables for the RH and LH channels but worried that using White cables will cause White noise and for that same reason I've stayed away from mixing Red and Whites cables together in case of Pink Noise.
The Green and Yellow ones are just plain disturbing IMO.


What would you recommend?

Hey I'm all for good discussion! Just trying to prevent the OP from getting the wrong (or "not applicable") advice.

I really like Tasker C300 for balanced cables. It's more upper midrange than really top of the line, let alone boutique, but it's good and still quite flexible. I see it in theatres a lot, at least here in Holland. I think they're Italian, so there's probably a more local alternative over in the US.

For unbalanced signal (mainly guitar and Rhodes and such) I went with Klotz AC110 (the replacement of the LaGrange I think). Really good shielding and some of the lowest capacitance I've seen at non-ridiculous prices.

I think I got the idea. Balanced cables won't make a difference in the tonal character of the piano patches, but a new monitor system will. I just can't figure out why my cheaper S90 and also TruePianos both sound fine through that same system. I really need to continue working with the filters, EQ, velocity curves, etc. Thanks to all for chiming in in this rather spirited discussion. And please continue to do so. I would like to hear some more ideas.

There were some good tips here too; try the same cables and channel for the Kronos as you do with your S90, check the headphones - if there's something really wrong with the Kronos that's the way to find out. But to be honest my best guess is that you
1. Got used to the sound of your other synth and vst on this system
2. Their tonal character, by sheer luck, happens to work well with the frequency response of your relatively cheap monitor system
Both of these have happened to me in the past with various gear.

Also annoying is the next step, when you get a nice pair of studio monitors and then everything sounds like crap because you can suddenly hear all the imperfections of your other gear
That is also the point to switch to balanced cables btw

Sparker wrote:JPWC:

I personnally perfer Canare Cable, comes in great colors

I tend to use Red cables for the RH channel and Blue for the LH channel. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of using Black and White cables for the RH and LH channels but worried that using White cables will cause White noise and for that same reason I've stayed away from mixing Red and Whites cables together in case of Pink Noise.
The Green and Yellow ones are just plain disturbing IMO.


What would you recommend?

I have some red midi cables but the music just sounded too hot. I have setting onto dark grey for the link to my TC-Helicon pedal - vocals are much calmer now- and black between synths which is great for jazz and blues. I used the dark grey for a classical set for a wedding recently and the whole thing went well:quote "gave me dark gray goose pimples...

DB

I just bought 500 foot of Green Canare Star Quad cable. I understand that "Green" is more environmentally sound than other extreme colors.

While soldering is easy enough, unravelling the braid can be time consuming. I use a scribe (metal pointed stick) and uncomb the braid.

I make most of my own cables, balanced and nonbalanced, 1/8" and 1/4" TS or TRS.

The best tip beyond balanced is using a 90 degree (right angle) connector at the keyboard end and a straight connector at the other, here again I use canare connectors for TRS and RCA connections, but general go with Neutric for XLR.

Another advantage of using good cables (100% shield, star quad) is less microphonics, so when live and the singer whips the mic around, you get a nice clean signal with no clicking.

Once upon a time Monster cables had a thing going where they said something to the fact that they used different thickness strands of wire in their cables to facilitate different frequencies of music. Thick strands for bass and thin strands for highs. They also had a way of winding the wires so that the thin (high frequency) wires were longer than the thick strands. Great sales pitch but if I'm not mistaken, electricity travels at the speed of light. There is no audible difference unless the cable is a few thousand miles long.

On another note, the TS or TRS discussion. This only matter if the input to the mixer accepts TRS. It has to be at both ends in order to matter.

Red cables sound warmer!