"Backwards" xlr mic jacks?

[Frank DeWitt]

Originally Posted by pdc

There is still a huge debate over what XLR stands for. Nobody knows.

Cannon X series connector with Locking option making it a XL and then Cannon modified the female end only to put the contacts in a Resilient polychloroprene compound. They called this new version the XLR series.

X series Locking Resilient No one else makes a Resilient connector but 3 letters sound good so it stuck.

http://www.soundfirst.com/xlr.html

Frank

[pdc]

That's one of the rumors on Yahoo Answers, but it is not true according to Cannon. They do not know what it stands for. The only guys that knew are dead. There are several old guys now that have old Cannon parts books, and there is one thing for sure. It has nothing to do with L/R X (g) because the XLR is available in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc pin formats. There are numerous rumors, but nobody knows. There have been massive debates on-line about this. OLD guys from JBL, Neve, Bell Labs, and others have told what they always thought it meant. Some of them are logical guesses.

[Frank DeWitt]

I once worked with a man who designed a very exotic part for a multi million dollar machine. The part took days to machine and was complex and crucial to the machines operation. It was known on all official drawings as the FLT. I asked him in private what FLT stood for and he quickly replied "Funny Looking Thing". I began to refer to it as the "Funny Looking Thing" in design meetings. I was always stopped by higher ups and told that that was not what FLT stood for and to stop. I would always apologies and ask what it did stand for. They didn't know, but they knew it was not "Funny Looking Thing" It just couldn't be. The part was just to important.

I am going to stick with X series, Locking, Resilient

Frank