TRS vs balanced vs stereo vs mic vs xlr vs...

[azistenostora]

Might sound like a stupid question and it might have been covered before but I couldn't find anything so here goes: I got a bit confused lately and never actually thought about this before. To the guys who know basic electronics, are trs, balanced and mic cables essentially exactly the same and only differ in their names?
Why am I asking? One of my monitor cables broke and I want to replace it. They are active monitors (M-Audio BX5a if it matters) and have both TRS and XLR on the back. I think I was running them with plain old mic cables so far and wondered if getting a balanced audio cable will actually be any different? As far as I can tell most online stores are listing pretty much the same cables under the "mic" and the "balanced audio" cables categories. Cheese

 

[Slicklickz]

Might sound like a stupid question and it might have been covered before but I couldn't find anything so here goes: I got a bit confused lately and never actually thought about this before. To the guys who know basic electronics, are trs, balanced and mic cables essentially exactly the same and only differ in their names?
Why am I asking? One of my monitor cables broke and I want to replace it. They are active monitors (M-Audio BX5a if it matters) and have both TRS and XLR on the back. I think I was running them with plain old mic cables so far and wondered if getting a balanced audio cable will actually be any different? As far as I can tell most online stores are listing pretty much the same cables under the "mic" and the "balanced audio" cables categories. Cheese

TRS is 3 conductor 1/4 inch and XLR is 3 conductor with XLR connectors,they are both electrically the same.Low level mic signals are usually XLR and line level is usually TRS.TRS cables can also be used for unbalanced 2 channel.

 

[Trevoire520]

Yep, no difference between the cables, just different connectors.

 

[azistenostora]

Yeah, that's what I thought but I better asked before ordering the wrong cables. The terms are somewhat confusing, I almost ordered some heavy gauge "speaker" cables first and realised they were actual speaker cables as in carrying current. After all these years pretending to be an audio guy that would have been a school boy error