Can i use dmx cable for audio

However, many entry-level lights have 3 pin plugs. You can read more about the specifics of DMX here. This leaves you with 2 choices — use the less expensive audio XLR to run your lights or buy 3-pin DMX cable that looks very similar to your audio cable.

Then you go ahead and try using microphone cables to run your DMX lights, and everything works fine. It works, right? The but comes in because, we can get away with using microphone cables for DMX, and it does seem to work most of the time. True, real DMX cable that meets the specification must be ohm cable.

Microphone cable is a lower impedance ohms , and the difference in capacitance and twisting ratio makes it terrible for DMX signal. Skip to the next paragraph to get the information that you need to know! DMX cable is designed and built for signal at a much higher bandwidth amount of data and frequency above our hearing range.

There are tons of data packets traveling down that cable on a constant basis — this is very different from analog audio signal. If you use microphone cable, you can and probably will eventually have problems with signal loss, dropped signal or interference.

Got it? Go to Shopping List. Recent Posts. Simplifying the Many Differences among Ethernet Cables. Why Custom? Time to Get Organized with Cable Management. November October September May April March July June August February January Both have the standard 3-pin configuration and similar builds, and maybe, in some cases, the connector is exactly the same on both.

But, go beyond the connector and you have two cables with fundamentally different purposes. The most common XLR configurations are 3-pin and 5-pin, although some proprietary 4-pin XLR cables exist for certain audio equipment like intercoms. The DMX standard was created in using existing XLR connectors to adapt to products already on the market without any proprietary connection.

It also introduced a 5-pin format with the intention of expanding its functions with the additional pins, however that is very infrequent so nearly every 5-pin DMX cable only has 3 soldered connection points with 2 unused pins. DMX cables are what we use for lighting. The impedance required for this is ohms.