Originally Posted by
Kraftstoffvondesibel
this is very confusing, how many poles on those jacks? XLR is an inherently more solid and wear-proof format, and thus preferred for professional applications, it can be had with any number of poles. The most used is XLR-3, but it can be much more. Depends on the aircraft-installation, but that would need to be modified anyway to have stereo music, or? Jacks is as old as telephone, tolerances aren’t super-tight , and there is for instance not any industry standard to on the small-> large jack plugs. A constant source of frustration. It is a weak construction compared to Canon-plugs(XLRs).
anyway, changing from one to the other by means of converting plugs is trivial.
how many poles are common? Whats the different aviation standards?
Airbus XLR is 5 pin. The headset LEMO standard is 6 pin. Extra pin gives you the stereo channel (for aircraft so equipped). LEMO plugs are really excellent, and are used in all sorts of industrial, scientific, and aerospace applications.