[aspeters]

Ok, i'll have to say that after a whole bunch of reading on here (multiple posts on humming and building custom interconnects and rewiring the CATV ground cable...all out of my skill level), I'm still somewhat confused as to the difference between balanced/unbalanced and its relationship to grounding. Even checked out a primer on some other site and that helped a bit with the education but not how to solve the problem.

Rather than someone spending the time to do an additional physics lesson (which is welcome of course but not necessary), I would love more specifically a clarification on the 1/4" balanced vs the 1/4" stereo connector.

My Onkyo TX-SR602 has a subwoofer pre-out RCA jack (and I guess that not a balanced output??). The Velodyne CHT-10 takes stereo RCA line-level inputs (also not balanced??) and I've had good success with a 40' run of Monster RCA and Y-splitter. To insert the BFD between Onkyo and Sub I'm using a pair of 2 RCA to 1/4" mono cables (presumably unbalanced???).

Enter line hum (which will be checked later and perhaps attributed to either CATV or using multiple electrical circuits.) In mean time, question in my head is still around this "balanced" cable thing:

Is it possible/appropriate to use connect any/all of the receiver, sub, or BFD with "balanced" cables instead, and eliminate hum?

Thanks again for the explanations.