Take the 2-minute tour ×  What is "balanced" audio exactly, and
why is it useful? I've read that it means there are two
voltages, with one being the inverse of the other. A balanced
audio receiver looks at the difference between these, and calls
that the "signal". Noise should affect both halves of the
balanced signal equally, so the receiver should not see noise as
signal, because it does not change the difference between the
two halves.  But this doesn't make any sense. Isn't an
unbalanced audio signal also a difference: the difference
between ground and the signal voltage? Why can't we just feed an
unbalanced audio signal into a balanced audio receiver and call
it balanced?  And how does making a second, inverted voltage
change anything at all? If we didn't do this, wouldn't noise
still affect both halves equally, and still be rejected by the
receiver?  share|improve this question Just a thought, not an
answer: I suppose it isn't merely about an inverted waveform
being added: To take a trivial example, any