Balanced uses three wires called Hot, Cold and Ground , unbalanced two wires Signal and Ground
Balanced is generally agreed to improve the transfer of signal by 6db
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I think in any area of knowledge it is important to be able to distinguish the difference between a humble but knowledgable person expressing his views in a genuine, self effacing way, from those of an ignorant person, with a lack of confidence, being bullish about his knowledge.
With regard to distortion increasing dynamics, we can take a simple model and deduce the effects of distortion on dynamics.
If we take the example of a signal and introduce 1% distortion, a rather high level, (-40dB), the new signal level becomes 1.01/1 greater in magnitude. It is evident that this increase in level is very low in dB terms and probably undetectable to all.
(I do not have a charged up logs calculator to hand, but fro memory even 1.1/1 gives only about a 1dB level increase).
WRT clipping, of course that will produce odious distortion, well understood and documented, though on the HUG site there are claims that the distortion produced by valves under clipping conditions is mellifluous to some.
Perhaps Ark, you can explain what you think I am missing.
I think he's probably referring to you saying "take the example of a signal and introduce 1% distortion, a rather high level, (-40dB), the new signal level becomes 1.01/1 greater in magnitude". Distortion usually occurs because the signal cannot swing far enough, therefore squashing and reducing the waveform, rather than the waveform becoming greater in amplitude.
Yes, both single-ended and balanced connections have a ground wire - no surprise there. Where the single-end connection has one wire for the signal, balanced has two - which is what I said.
Where a piece of equipment has a single-end output and a balanced output the balanced output is often 6dB higher than the single-ended. I don't think that's the same as improving the transfer of the signal by 6dB. In fact, I'm not sure what "improving the transfer of the signal by 6dB" actually means. A signal-to-noise ratio improvement, maybe?
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