On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 20:31:18 GMT, "Tess" wrote:

>Could someone please explain "balanced line inputs" versus "unbalanced
>inputs"? Thanks...

I will take a stab, though the following is
a "guestimate"...;-) Unbalanced audio lines
have two conductors and end connections;
balanced have three. Unbalanced is ground
and hot; balanced is ground plus negative
and positive (actually, opposite-polarity)
hots. Either works fine if shielding is
good enough, and there are few problems in
the audio and if the problems are of low
enough amplitude so as not to noticably
degrade the quality of the audio. The
advantage of balanced lines is that audio
disturbances are likely to exist about
equally in the two opposite-polarity hots,
and are therefore cancelled out of the
audio signal. How'd I do...? ;-)
BTW, I've done a fair amount of audio
recording of even large orchestras with
longish unbalanced mic lines (home-made
mics...;-) without problems, so it is
possible to use unbalanced lines without
problems if you are careful...