XLR Pin Vocabulary

One more note: Industry standard is pin 1 is ground, pin 2 is non-inverting (+) and pin 3 is inverting (-). Some manufacturers do not recognize the standard (we've even seen some using pin 3 as ground) but usually the only significance is that the signal might get inverted if only one of two products connected together is on the standard.

Atmasphere, both my preamp and amp have pin one as the ground. But pin 2 on the preamp is non-inverting and pin 3 inverting, while my amp has the reverse configuration (pin 2 -, pin 3 +). Since the amp is designed to be fully balanced, doesn't the mismatch compromise the sound? Should I have the interconnect cables re-wired, 2 to 3 and 3 to 2?

Kusina -

as "Atmasphere" stated, the only result of using gear with different pin assignments (inverting/non-inverting pins switched) is that the signal will end up being inverted, or reverse polarity. You could have a custom set of interconnects made, with pin 2 going to pin 3, and pin 3 going to pin 2. but then that cable should only be used for those specific pieces of gear. A much easier way to get back to the correct polarity is to swap the speaker cable terminals at one end or the other (not both). That will flip the polarity once again and get you back to where you should be. with either fix, there is no compromise to the sound.

50% of your recordings are out of phase anyway. I would not worry about it too much, unless they are all 2-mic recordings, in which case a phase inversion switch would be handy.