How to Wire a Stereo XLR to 3 Pin XLR Plugs

Make a Breakout Cable from A 5 Pin Socket to Two Mono Plugs

Jun 5, 2009

5-Pin XLR pinout looking at Solder-side of Plug, Richard Mudhar

Most mixers and audio inputs are single-channel 3-pin XLR sockets. A simple Y cable breaks out one stereo XLR 5 pin socket to two 3-pin plugs.

Many single-point stereo microphones present the signal on a compact 5 pin stereo XLR plug which carries balanced left, right and ground signals. The corresponding socket is not so common on audio inputs, so a breakout cable is required to take the XLR5 socket to two separate XLR3 plugs.

Pre-prepared breakout cables are commercially available, but it is easy enough to assemble a suitable breakout cable to allow a microphone such as the Shure VP88, Rode NT4 or Sony ECM-957 to be used with regular 3-pin XLR inputs. Once the microphone signal is on regular XLR connectors, normal accessories like stage mic boxes and the like can be used to take the signal back to the mixer or location field recorder.

XLR5 Connector Pin Allocation for Balanced Stereo Audio

The pins on the stereo microphone connector are used as follows:

Shield
Left Hot
Left Cold
Right Hot
Right Cold

XLR3 Connector Pin Allocation for Balanced Audio Use

The pins on a XLR 3 pin connector are used in the following way for balanced audio:

Shield
Hot (normal input)
Cold (inverting input)

How to Wire a XLR5 to Two XLR3 plugs

The breakout cable is reasonably straightforward. It is usually possible to get two balanced audio overall screened twisted pair cables into the XLR5 line socket. To do this, it is necessary to choose non-ruggedised cable with a diameter of 5mm or less. Wire as follows:

XLR5 pin 1 to both cable shields going to Left XLR3 Pin 1 and Right XLR3 Pin 1 This is the only pin which takes two wires in parallel. It us usually worth using some kind of insulating sleeving on this
XLR5 pin 2 to Left XLR3 pin 2
XLR5 pin 3 to Left XLR3 pin 3
XLR5 pin 4 to Right XLR3 pin 2
XLR5 pin 5 to Right XLR3 pin 3

Since the two mono XLR plugs look identical, it is worth marking the right hand one to avoid switching the stereo channels by mistake. This can be done with a piece of colour-coded heat shrink sleeving over the cable at the plug end, or by using a different coloured cable for Right and Left inputs.

The length of the breakout cable depends on the application, though usually about 1.5m (about five feet) is enough if the recorder will be close to the mic. The XLR 3 mono cables can easily be extended using standard audio XLR patch cables.

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The copyright of the article How to Wire a Stereo XLR to 3 Pin XLR Plugs in Recording Engineering is owned by Richard Mudhar. Permission to republish How to Wire a Stereo XLR to 3 Pin XLR Plugs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.