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rca>xlr better than rca>rca?

post #1 of 16
4/9/07 at 4:31am
Thread Starter 
hi,

source has unbalanced rca. amp has balanced xlr and unbalanced rca.

which will achieve better sound. rca>rca or rca>xlr(passive).

i used search but this exact question has never been answered clearly.

thanks,
music_man
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post #2 of 16
4/9/07 at 5:02am
no difference, they both form good connections. of course hard-soldering is always better.
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post #3 of 16
4/9/07 at 5:06am
If you are going to use long lengths of cables, and live in an electrically noisy environment that XLR would be the better choice.
If you are a home user with every main part of your hifi close to each other then RCA is the best choice.

Of course , you'll get people who are going to be on either side of the fence. But if my RCA leads are so well screened, and the earthing in my hifi equipment is properly implemented, then the use of XLR is purely for show.
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post #4 of 16
4/9/07 at 5:40am
I believe balanced connections are only useful if every link in your signal chain is balanced. XLR cables are designed to reject noise but what's the point if the first link is unbalanced and gets noise in the signal? The XLR is just going to transfer that signal noise along, not get rid of it. I suppose you could justify it because you won't get any MORE noise in the signal between whichever components have XLR inbetween them but then again you may not notice the difference at all.

My pre-amp has balanced out but not balanced in. This is a little silly to me. I'm just using regular RCA connections.
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post #5 of 16
4/9/07 at 5:43am
aren't balanced inputs made for a 4V signal, instread of the 2V RCA? Something like that, others here can surely explain this better, but I think the RCA-signals are not optimalized for a XLR-input. And I agree with the former poster, there are no benefits since the RCA signal is unbalanced.
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post #6 of 16
4/9/07 at 6:01am
There is no difference.
If either side is RCA you don't use the balanced signal. You run a singele signal identical to RCA-RCA.
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post #7 of 16
4/9/07 at 6:25am
Thread Starter 
all the high end equipment has xlr's. i am sure some people are going to disagree.

herandu, for the most part you are correct. the fact is that most of the high end home audio equipment is not truly internally balanced. on equipment that is truly completely balanced than i'd use the xlr's.

i'll try both cables. the xlr's and rca's are on the same channel. if there is no jump in volume than i know it is not internally balanced.

somewhere someone said that a rca to xlr cable is nearly as good as completely balanced. that seems wrong to me. i need to try my balanced euipment unbalanced and see if i can hear a difference.

as i said yesterday i do think going in spdif and out balanced is a waste. it has to be aes if you want to go out balanced. remember this is all pro audio gear that trickled down to high end home audio.

music_man
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post #8 of 16
4/9/07 at 6:32am
Thread Starter 
well could someone just tell me ahead of time

is there a big sonic improvement with a cdp connected to the amp xlr>xlr vs rca>rca? using the same high quality 1 meter cables.

i don't even know if players like the scd-1 and g08 and dacs like the cs and benchmark are truly balanced anyhow. if they are not completely balanced internally as i said, simply having xlr outs i don't expect to hear a difference.

with the cs you need to go 1/4"trs to xlr. i am sure that degrades the sound some too.

music_man
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post #9 of 16
4/9/07 at 3:03pm
Why would going from 1/4"trs to xlr degrade the sound?
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post #10 of 16
4/9/07 at 3:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by music_man View Post
as i said yesterday i do think going in spdif and out balanced is a waste. it has to be aes if you want to go out balanced. remember this is all pro audio gear that trickled down to high end home audio.

music_man
I'm sure I'm missing something here.... but look at the back panel of the DAC1.

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/p...1-usb_rear.jpg

Are you saying it has to be balanced AES in? Because can't you do AES/SPDIF on the BNC/RCA connection? I'm sketchy ont he difference between AES and SPDIF.

Example... MY CD player has a coax out that I was looking to use in combination with the DAC1. Does that mean I am unable to realize the full potential of the DAC1's balanced outputs?
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post #11 of 16
4/9/07 at 4:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ooheadsoo View Post
Why would going from 1/4"trs to xlr degrade the sound?
It wouldn't... He's going from RCA-type to XLR.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TreAdidas View Post
Are you saying it has to be balanced AES in? Because can't you do AES/SPDIF on the BNC/RCA connection? I'm sketchy ont he difference between AES and SPDIF.

Example... MY CD player has a coax out that I was looking to use in combination with the DAC1. Does that mean I am unable to realize the full potential of the DAC1's balanced outputs?
His question is about unbalanced source to balanced amp, meaning he'll be forced to have an unbalanced connection. The DAC-1 is a balanced source, and it doesn't really matter how the digital input arrives.

From the Wikipedia article on S/PDIF:

Quote:
S/PDIF is essentially a minor modification of the original AES/EBU standard for consumer use, providing small differences in the protocol and requiring less expensive hardware.
AES/EBU is essentially "balanced digital" (via XLR, TRS, or some proprietary connector) but the difference between AES/EBU and S/PDIF is so minimal that it's not worth worrying about.
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post #12 of 16
4/9/07 at 4:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TreAdidas View Post
I'm sure I'm missing something here.... but look at the back panel of the DAC1.

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/p...1-usb_rear.jpg

Are you saying it has to be balanced AES in? Because can't you do AES/SPDIF on the BNC/RCA connection? I'm sketchy ont he difference between AES and SPDIF.

Example... MY CD player has a coax out that I was looking to use in combination with the DAC1. Does that mean I am unable to realize the full potential of the DAC1's balanced outputs?
TreAdidas,

The short answer is...the digital input used causes no differences between the analog outputs (balanced vs. unbalanced).

The long answer is...

The advantages between the three common digital interfaces (XLR, coax, optical) are solely for getting the digital signal to its destination with as little jitter/noise as possible. The DAC1 utilizes the UltraLock clocking scheme, making it immune to jitter. Therefore, there is no difference between the performance of the different digital inputs (unless your digital cable run is more then 1000 feet, then you might want to use XLR to make sure the signal makes it there!!).

As you mentioned, the type of cable (XLR, coax, optical) does not determine the format of the audio (AES, SPDIF, etc).

After the digital signals are received by the DAC1, they are treated completely equally and perform equally. They are converted to I2S - a fundamental digital audio signal with no metadata. Based on the input selection, one of the I2S signals are passed along to the converter path.

After conversion, the same analog signal is sent to the input of both the balanced output amplifier and the unbalanced output amplifier.

Thanks,
Elias
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post #13 of 16
4/9/07 at 5:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by music_man View Post
well could someone just tell me ahead of time

is there a big sonic improvement with a cdp connected to the amp xlr>xlr vs rca>rca? using the same high quality 1 meter cables.

i don't even know if players like the scd-1 and g08 and dacs like the cs and benchmark are truly balanced anyhow. if they are not completely balanced internally as i said, simply having xlr outs i don't expect to hear a difference.

with the cs you need to go 1/4"trs to xlr. i am sure that degrades the sound some too.

music_man
Music Man,

The sonic advantage of using balanced analog connections is lower noise. The balanced connections utilize a common-mode rejection technique that cancels any noise that was gathered from ground loops or EMI. Also, the balanced signal is usually 12 dB louder, which gives your amp an increase in signal to noise ratio.

Thanks,
Elias
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post #14 of 16
4/9/07 at 7:39pm
Thread Starter 
you were right. the balanced signal is louder at the same volume position. that coupled with picking up no noise means no noise floor at idle whatsoever.
except with the volume wide open which is not where i'd be listening

unfortunately, what this is all about is i want to swap the scd-1 with the 5910ci so i can watch movies. i already own both otherwise i'd buy a balanced dvd player.

so to the original question. i read in another post here that a cable that goes rca>xlr is nearly the quality of xlr>xlr on balanced connections. is that true or hogwash? the amp says it converts the unbalanced signal to balanced internally anyhow so i do not know what this cable will actually do for me in fact.

music_man
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post #15 of 16
4/10/07 at 10:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by music_man View Post
you were right. the balanced signal is louder at the same volume position. that coupled with picking up no noise means no noise floor at idle whatsoever.
except with the volume wide open which is not where i'd be listening

unfortunately, what this is all about is i want to swap the scd-1 with the 5910ci so i can watch movies. i already own both otherwise i'd buy a balanced dvd player.

so to the original question. i read in another post here that a cable that goes rca>xlr is nearly the quality of xlr>xlr on balanced connections. is that true or hogwash? the amp says it converts the unbalanced signal to balanced internally anyhow so i do not know what this cable will actually do for me in fact.

music_man
This is true, IF the cable is made correctly. The cable needs to be a 3 conductor cable, and the wires going to pin 1 and pin 3 of the XLR connector must both be connected to the shield back at the RCA end.

Allen Burdick, the president of Benchmark Media, wrote a paper about this and similar subjects called "The Clean Audio Installation Guide." The paper can be found by going to:

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/caig/

Thanks,
Elias
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