Balanced cables are.......balanced which means they are essentially, noise canceling. Someone else can describe how that works better than I. Basically there are two positives one out of phase with the other or something to that effect. Use those between your interface and your monitors.

The braided shielding and woven cable are nice. If you can get a set of those in a balanced cable that would be cool.

yea i sort of knew what the balanced did but i just dont know how you go about using them or how over unbalanced in my case
wait is this balanced? http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/product/Hosa-Dual-TRS-TRS-Patch-Cable?sku=333003

also i used to use this http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live-Wire-3.5M-TRSDual-14-Y-Cable?sku=330481
when recording from my keyboard directly to my pc sound card is that balanced? the 1/8" side has two black rings

rockdude wrote: my keyboard (Casio WK-8000) has two 1/4" outputs left and right so how should I connect it to my audio interface http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Digidesign-Mbox-2-Mini-?sku=700498
it has 2 line inputs.

Use two separate TS jack cables.

rockdude wrote: like do balanaced 1/4" audio cables carry stero?

This is a common misconception. While a balanced cable has three conductors it only carries a mono signal. Headphones also have three conductors but carry a stereo signal. The difference is that a balance cable has wires for + and - signal. When these two are summed, The result cancels any noise that would have been induced equally on the + and - halves.

Both the M-Box and Casio are balanced, so I would recommend using 2 1/4" TRS balanced cables. On the other hand, TR cables will be cheaper, and because of the short run length and high signal level you probably aren't going to hear a difference. So it really doesn't matter. Personally I would go with the TRS because they are more useful, and both input and output are balanced.

so any 1/4" audio wire with two black rings or TRS is balanced right? so whats the difference between this cable http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/product/Hosa-Dual-TRS-TRS-Patch-Cable?sku=333003
and 2 of these http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live-Wire-TRSTRS-Balanced-Patch-Cable?sku=330494 ?
are 2 of these cables used in L and R outputs the same as using the 1 above cable?

You got it!

Is there any reason to own an unbalanced cable, then?

which of those two would u guys recommend i get?

StephenMC wrote: Is there any reason to own an unbalanced cable, then?

Cost. 10% of a studio gear budget is cables. And 50% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
If you had an unbalance output, and a balanced input, then the unconnected wire would act like an antenna, and add noise. With a regular 1/4 cable you would not have that problem.

Hi,
Don't get the HOSA one, I have it and it shorts out very quickly and easily. IDK about the other one.

BrianaW wrote: Hi,
Don't get the HOSA one, I have it and it shorts out very quickly and easily. IDK about the other one.

I second this, I owned one HOSA, I cut the end off it when the TRS jack started acting like a fish hook and trying to gut systems. Then we let the bits float around on the floor of the lounge room, it was a nice piece of detritus that suited the decor.

HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! Beautiful. :)