Playing with RCA vs Balanced in my setup

[The Black Adder]

When I had a Chord setup I prefered balanced, it was blatantly obvious to me which was best.

[anthonyTD]

I have to say that I do accept, and agree with you on the technical side of this one Jez,
However; as usual, we are not comparing figures, we are dealing with a person's perception of what they feel sounds best to them, and in this case, and dare I say it, many others, it seems to be that Balanced set up is prefered over Single ended, I have to say though on a personal level' I have never found the need to use a balanced line set up at home, however, some of my amps were designed to be single ended, or balanced input.

There is no reason to presume balanced should be better than unbalanced.. it's just yet another hi fi myth.... Much of the time balanced means a more complicated signal path with more active devices in the path, or a passive transformer with all the ills of transformers.
If there is no mains hum or other interference present when using unbalanced then there isn't even the advantage in noisy environments to be gained from going balanced.

The whole point of balanced is that in pro environments when many dozens of microphones, mic pre amps, effects units, etc etc may need setting up quickly and may well need very long leads (like 50 yards or more) from a stage or studio then everything may be just plugged in with little worry of mains hum, earth loops etc.

In a domestic setting we can take care to position equipment sensibly, avoiding putting a phono stage on top of a power amp for example, where the hum field from the power amps transformer will reach beyond the casework and could cause hum to be picked up by the phono stage. We also can, most of the time, get away with interconnects of a meter or two and take care not to run them alongside a mains lead etc. Under these domestic conditions there is simply no need for or advantage to balanced. As I said it is often a disadvantage in as much as there can be considerably more gubbins in the signal path!

It strikes me as odd, or at least inconsistent, that folks will one minute be all "oh we can't have nasty op amps in the signal path.. it must be discrete, or better still valved.." and then not give a fig if the balanced interface involves adding six op amps per channel...

The main potential advantage of balanced, to me anyway, is the potential to avoid all earth signal current issues, but if the unbalanced circuitry is well designed it is not an issue anyway. If one looks up "pin 1 problem" it can be seen that even balancing is not without issues here!!

The best and most pure balanced circuitry IMHO is where the circuitry is intrinsically balanced by design throughout... This can maximise advantages such as cancellation of even order distortion and increasing headroom. Even this though will often mean a much more complicated signal path and in fact will often mean the duplication of circuitry ie often there will be an amp for the "hot" signal and another amp for the "cold" signal for each channel... Circuitry such as this is is the most likely to really resent being used unbalanced though!!

It's a big subject when you really look into it. In many ways transformers are best ie maximum CMRR over widest frequency range, greatest tolerance to overload and maintaining certain behaviour when used unbalanced and one input is either left open or shorted. They also greatly simplify things! BUT, personally I would never put a transformer in the signal path as they have too many imperfections!
In pro audio certain pieces of equipment have legendary status mainly because of the colouration they add to the signal! "nice", euphonic colouration is what we're talking here of course. Much of this colouration comes from the transformers used in the balanced outputs and inputs. A producer or engineer may well choose a mic pre known to sound especially warm and a bit rolled off at the top end if recording an artist with a really harsh voice... and that's an "artistic choice" I guess...

[Qwin]

Problem here is not all kit with XLR outs and ins is actually balanced. Balanced kit is dual differential. Using XLR outs may not sound better than RCA, but much depends on the circuit topology and the way the XLR outs and ins have been implemented.

Exactly!

Take the Cambridge Dacmagic as an example.
The XLR output sounds better than the Phono (From experience).
This is because the output is a balanced circuit.
The single ended output uses an additional op amp per channel to combine the two parts of the balanced signal.
So what you hear is an improvement due to avoiding a pair of additional op amps not needed on the balanced outputs.

OP's DAC may be similar.

Not withstanding Jez's comment that if designed as a single ended in the first place, it may have fewer op amps any way.

*So my experience is that one form of output will sound better than the other, dependant on circuit topology, the type of cable/connector type makes sod all difference.

[Marco]

However; as usual, we are not comparing figures, we are dealing with a person's perception of what they feel sounds best to them, and in this case, and dare I say it, many others, it seems to be that Balanced set up is preferred over Single ended.

Spot on. That's what I've (hopefully) just explained on the phone to Jez. Ultimately, to the listener concerned, what's preferred is preferred, regardless of what is technically correct. In that respect, therefore, there are no "myths", simply because a listener's preference is just as real to him or her, as what is technically wrong to Jez.

However, solely in terms of listening experience, I have to agree with Jez and Anthony, in that so far I've not considered it as sonically necessary to use balanced connections. I don't think there's any definitive answer to this issue though, in terms of which is best, than there is with pretty much any other aspect of hi-fi.

Marco.

[Qwin]

The trouble I have with the subjective side of things Marco is there is quite often an objective reason why one sounds better than the other. As in my Dacmagic example, also in a similar way, when I commented on your RPi thread. Where its not a subjective opinion, about it sounding good, its because of the use of the I2s bus to mount the DAC very close to the processor without cabling or other traffic. This way of doing things is a very real physical difference, so there is usually some reason other than personal preference involved, in most cases anyway, there will always be a Beatles or Stones element.

[Marco]

I don't disagree at all, Ken. However, for me, if what is stated as technically wrong still sounds better than what is technically right - I'll go with "technically wrong" every time!

Marco.

[brucew268]

I don't mind objective information as long as:

1. Don't cherry pick the details of a post that miss the intent of the discussion and thus serve to subjectively crap on the discussion. Participate in the discussion being had, not the discussion you want to derail it into. That is an issue regardless of objective/subjective questions.
   
2. Don't assume your facts are the only facts relevant and use them as a club against others. Barry's thoughts at 42, Qwin's at 45, and those that mentioned that it all depends on implementation, were all examples of additional relevant data. The tone of the presentor should not imply his/her data and his/her grasp of them is the only thing that is important.
   
3. Don't mix in opinions along with your facts and then claim you are only presenting irrefutable facts.
   
4. Don't arbitrarily drop into a conversation in a way that effectively disrupts it to "set others straight" but refuse to engage in the terms of the conversation being had. So, I join your convo and don't have to argue "on your terms" but if you disagree, you have to argue "on my terms".
   
5. Don't demean others by entering their conversation and then saying you have zero interest in their experience.
   
6. We need to value people, not just data.

[Marco]

Good post, Bruce! I'm especially with you on 2) and 6), which are both spot on and highly relevant as to why things kicked off earlier, because they outline, in that respect, what didn't happen.

Don't assume your facts are the only facts relevant and use them as a club against others. Barry's thoughts at 42, Qwin's at 45, and those that mentioned that it all depends on implementation, were all examples of additional relevant data. The tone of the presentor should not imply his/her data and his/her grasp of them is the only thing that is important.

We need to value people, not just data.

Marco.

[Qwin]

I know where your coming from Marco, but when have you ever truly preferred something technically wrong?

Valves offer a distorted view of things from a pure frequency point of view, but the type of distortion is pleasant to our senses, so it depends what your criterion is for the measurements. If 3rd harmonics are to be considered technically good, from a sensory pleasure point of view, is a serious and technical question.

Whether we value something that sounds pleasurable over pure accuracy is another can of worms.

It's all shades of Grey with respect to what we consider relevant technically, once you get away from the basic electrical and acoustic theory.

It's like knitting Fog trying to establish what it is that we actually like about one thing over another, and even harder to articulate it.

The attempts make for good reading though.

Good post Bruce

[Marco]

I know where your coming from Marco, but when have you ever truly preferred something technically wrong?

Difficult to answer that one, Ken, because it's not something I've ever really considered, as what's technically right or wrong doesn't concern me. I leave that to the engineers. Ultimately all that matters is whether something sounds right to me, or not, using MY judgement criteria.

However, I've heard equipment and systems that measure impeccably, yet sound rather disappointing (as in sonically adequate, but musically bland/inept).

Whether we value something that sounds pleasurable over pure accuracy is another can of worms.

Indeed it does,. Firstly we have to define (and agree upon) what is considered as "pure accuracy"

It's all shades of Grey with respect to what we consider relevant technically, once you get away from the basic electrical and acoustic theory.

Now *that* I really do agree with!

Marco.