3.6 XLR Female and Male Connectors

The XLR connector was originally designed for professional, high-level, balanced audio runs. It is also the most common connector for microphones and is sometimes called a ‘microphone connector’.

With the advent of semi-pro gear, you can no longer trust an XLR connector to be balanced, high level or low impedance. You must determine, by looking at the equipment’s manual and/or schematics, what the configuration of your equipment is. The pictures in this section show a three-wire balanced connection for an XLR three-pin female. Male connectors are also covered, but are a similar wire dress.

XLR connectors also come in other pin configurations. I have seen two-, three-, four-, five- and six-pin applications. ...

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