A Question Of Balance, TRS vs TS? Options

[Jaysee]

Hi, at *long* last all my gear has arrived and I'm currently trying to figure out quite where everything should go. A couple of fairly basic questions before I plug it all together so that I dont electrocute myself and fry my new G5 etc:

The set up comprises a pair of Tapco S5 monitors, a little Tapco 6306 mixer, a Kurzweil 2661 kboard, EMS VCS3, nord modular. G5 2Ghz with very sexy new style flat 20" cinema display, DP, Maudio delta44 card and breakout box, Maudio midisport 4x4.

I'm a bit baffled by the fact that almost every input and output on almost all of the equipment seems to be in the unfamiliar form of *TRS* stereo balanced jack sockets.

In premidi years gone by I always used 'ordinary' presumably *TS* mono jackleads from my gear into an amp or submixer onstage when I was playing, so I dont really understand why the modern gear uses stereo connectors for every socket. Even the main L+R outs on the synth are TRS.
...surely that doesnt mean there are 4 ch of information, like Left(left and right) plus Right(left and right) I'm a bit perplexed. I've read a few definitions of balanced vs unbalanced but am still pretty confused. Can I use plain ol' mono jack to jack leads to connect everything up even though most of my gear seems to require these mysterious TRS sockets, I've waited such a long time (4months for some items!!)for these fancy new toys to arrive I dont want to f**k it all up before I start, so I'm a bit nervous.
Also: Any recommendations on speaker stands for the two Tapco S5s, they're small but quite heavy. I'd keep them to the L and R of the flat panel display as that has a very small footprint, but I'm not sure if its bad for an LCD display to be near strong magnetic fields, I know it isnt recommended with CRT.
God there some really silly unexpected ergonomic problems to get around. like if I stand the kurzweil on the lowest 'rungs' of my OTT ancient three tier keyboard stand, my view of my slick new monitor is partially obscured by the damned stand!!!
I ought to lie down, cheers, jaysee.

[Francois Déchery]

something along the lines of noise cancellation by inverting the offending noise waveform by 180 degrees so causing it to disappear?

you're right Jaysee. Balanced equipments reduce noise this way. But this works only if both side of the connections are balanced. If you use an unbalanded source that goes into a balanced input, you would loose the benefit of the balanced wiring.

Be carefull that in this case you would have to use a mono wire (TR to TR) and not a stereo wire (TRS to TRS), because using a mono would leave the "cold" point of the balanced input not connected to the ground which may cause problems on some gears.

He is the picture using a stereo (TRS) cable:

Unbalanced Source cable Balanced input
(+) ------> (+) -----------> (+)
() -------> (-) -----------> (-)
(ground) -> ground ---------> (ground)

In this cas the (-) is left unconnected.


He is the picture using a mono (TR) cable:

Unbalanced Source cable Balanced input
(+) ------> (+) -----------> (+)
(ground) -> ground ---------> (ground)

Due to the way a female jack socket is done, the (-) will also face the ground of the male jack inserted into it, thus connecting the receiving (-) to the ground...
The way unbalancing should be done in most modern gear.

HTH