What Is A Microphone cable?

Microphone cables are mainly used to connect microphone and audio equipment. They should be classified as weak current control cables in the cable category, and should be single-core or double-core shielding.

1. It is mainly divided into two categories: balanced type(double-core outsourcing shielding) and unbalanced type(single-core outsourcing shielding). The former is used for long-distance transmission, and the latter is used for short-distance transmission within about 5 to 10 meters. Microphone cables can usually transmit up to hundreds of meters away. The microphone input is an electrical signal of 1 millivolt(0.001V), and the microphone impedance is about 600 ohms. The microphone is an energy provider. Because its operating voltage is extremely weak, the wire needs to to deal with the problem of interference. There are two ways to deal with the problem of interference, twisted and braided.

Twisted pairing can only be used on balanced two-wire transmission signal lines. Since the signal is extremely weak, interference will inevitably be encountered during transmission. Therefore, at the microphone end, a transformer is used to convert the signal into one positive and one negative for simultaneous transmission. When subjected to external interference, the two lines will cancel each other out to eliminate the interference and obtain the required signal. In order to allow interference to enter the cable evenly, the wire pairs need to be twisted. Better twisting can be as fine as about 30mm. Similar anti-interference methods are used in network cables and HDMI.

The following is an introduction to some shielding methods:

1. wrapping : Copper wire is generally used to wrap around the inner cores. Most of them are used for short-distance microphone lines.

2. Braiding: The copper wire is woven into a mesh in a way that the shielding properties are much higher than that of wrapping. It is used in professional stage performances and equipment that needs to be moved.

3. Aluminum foil isolation: Using the characteristics of aluminum foil, aluminum foil is added to the periphery of the wire as a shield, and a ground wire is used for grounding. The shielding effect is good. This type of wire is mostly used in engineering installation or stage multi-core wires.

4. Conductive PVC/PE: Use soft PVC/PE to cover the outside of the wire. It has the characteristics of full coverage and not easy to be damaged. It needs to be used with wrapping or braiding. It is generally used on wires that are easy to be thrown and stepped on. Because of its characteristics between conductors and non-conductors, it can cause the space between lines to change instantly when it is stepped on, thus mitigating the discharge of distributed capacitance.

5. Composite isolation(double isolation): Double shielding is to make up for the advantages and disadvantages of the above multiple shielding. The most common one is aluminum foil + braiding, which is mainly used in wires that require extremely high shielding.

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