Balanced vs Single Ended (SE) sound

[Spectral Morn]

I fail to see how the first



Requires or implies the second



A fully balanced design is differential yes, but it says nothing about channels or power supplies. You could have a mono balanced design, you could have a 48 channel balanced design with shared power supplies or not.

There are a couple of obvious places where balanced can be useful. Phono cartridges are in effect balanced, and are only imbalanced by connecting on pin to ground, if rewired to be floating and going into a proper balanced input phono stage the noise cancelling aspect can be of real use. Also, a balanced input to a push pull amp makes a lot of sense (especially valve) where the phase splitter is often the major sonic problem, balanced input removes the need of a phase splitter, or at least places it elsewhere.

Wrong use of words re channel

Regards Neil

[SteveTheShadow]

I am, at the moment, running a fully balanced push pull valve amplifier, I built myself, using 6AQ5 7 pin miniature output pentodes, strapped as triodes.No phase splitter as it takes a balanced signal from my M1 DAC, which has balanced XLR outputs.


Sounds lovely

[daytona600]

this thread will have legs

[walpurgis]

I don't care. Some of my amps offer both and I can't hear any difference!

[Rothchild]

On a generally related note, most balanced studio gear runs with different nominal gain and headroom than unbalanced gear (+4dBu vs -10dBV) there's a nice primer here with some tips about using the two together: http://harmoniccycle.com/harmonicweb...4dBu-10dBV.htm

[Yomanze]

It makes a positive difference with fully balanced gear, as it is optimised with balanced operation in mind - as you are effectively doubling up on components this should be put to good use! My Krell KRC-3 is a good example of this. This isn't to say that there isn't single ended gear that sounds better! Another consideration is that RCA cables are much more audible than XLR in the audio chain.

[realysm42]

Another consideration is that RCA cables are much more audible than XLR in the audio chain.

What do you mean by this?

[Yomanze]

What do you mean by this?

Good morning, I meant that RCA interconnects make more of a difference to the sound whereas XLR is pretty much transparent. Interestingly LFD don't even make XLR cables anymore, and LFD were cable believers before most...

[Reffc]

Good morning, I meant that RCA interconnects make more of a difference to the sound whereas XLR is pretty much transparent. Interestingly LFD don't even make XLR cables anymore, and LFD were cable believers before most...

In some ways...yes; in some ways...no!

SE IC cables need to be screened for best performance otherwise they are susceptible to induced noise from EMI/RFI; the plugs make a difference too, as the materials, whether screened or not, tolerances and design can/do all have an effect on the signal. I've gone through skip loads of connectors trying to determine which "sound" best with the cables that I use, and whilst measurements can tell us some things, clearly we're not measuring the right things because there is a clear and audible difference between different types of connectors. Whether the cable itself sounds different depends entirely on the circuit it's used in, external influences, geometry and materials. SE IC's need to be more accurately made IMHO, and digital cables especially so in terms of impedance (consistency along cable length). Balanced XLR leads may be less susceptible to external influences but I have found differences in sound between them. Slight, but there.

[realysm42]

I originally used cardas neutral xlrs, then moved up to tq black, then mcru ultimate xlrs; there was a clearly audible difference between them all; id imagine even more so now my systems that much more transparent than that time.