Balanced VS. Single ended - Poll

I voted single-ended. One of the major engineers at Benchmark is on record as saying the benefits as oft' advertised simply don't exist(AMB forum); even as a layperson looking at it it's not clear what you get for doubled output impedance and other tradeoffs.

 

EDIT: Located the quotes (http://www.amb.org/forum/benchmark-engineer-on-balanced-v-unbalanced-headphone-amps-t326.html#p2942) and reproduced them below:

 

It is worth noting that AMB contested some of these claims, but I side *very* strongly with the Benchmark engineer on this one.

 

Initial message expressing opinion on debate:

 

Edited by Willakan - 10/18/11 at 7:00am

May I add one more term, which is who ever going to vote has to use a balance system for at least six months.  It will not be fair to vote if one does not have sufficient experience with what a balance sound is like.  Agree?

 

With that, 1 vote for balance with three years of balance use.

 

Withdrawn.

Edited by Jalo - 10/18/11 at 12:38pm

I voted for single ended, for low output impedance and half the complexity of balanced systems.

The only real benefit of balanced setups is noise rejection and stereo separation, so they are good in a noisy environment or for long cable runs.

going balanced eliminates cross-talk and usually means better shielding as well. i only have experience with balanced professional gear mostly. that's why headphones back then also used balanced 4-core TRS jacks or DIN/XLR connectors due to eliminate cross-talk. like how speaker amps have a separate ground/negative to eliminate cross-talk but cross-talk still happens due to the crossover limitations. headphones have the advantages due to them having no cross-over limitations so going balanced is more effective. elimination of cross-talk means more accurate 3d soundstage and imaging and faster how the headphone and amp communicates from transferring electrical energy into acoustic energy.

just impedance usually doubles going balanced since no longer the drivers are sharing a common ground cable between each other meaning sharing resistance as well and impedance has a higher fluctuation during certain frequency ranges due to impedance vs. frequency. depending on the person it might differ but their is lot of arguments like many other things that there is not much difference going from shared ground to balanced( separate negative/ground,positive).

push-pull is always better especially for high voltages increases and decreases. that's why you find speaker amps with push-pull design and not op-amps. op-amps can be great but their real limitation is when it comes to fluctuations of voltages and current especially when the source has massive current and voltages changes.

like to add also push-pull designs using a big power transformer is also better when it comes to impedance matching cause the transformer will lower and higher it's voltages to meet the respective impedance at the certain frequency range.
Edited by RexAeterna - 10/18/11 at 10:49am

My R10 only have single ended connections, and in the interest of conservation I refuse to reterminate them. 

 

They sound better than my HD800, or pretty much any other headphone that I own. They win.

Quote:

Unless I have got totally the wrong end of the stick, this is an argument for the increased slew rate of balanced drive. I wasn't aware, however, that slew rate was a problem in the overwhelming majority of headphone amplifiers. The slew rate requirements for delivering music perfectly as far as slew rate is concerned into most headphones really are not particularly onerous and certainly not beyond the means of opamps.

 

Edited by Willakan - 10/18/11 at 11:20am

 

 

The reason for balanced systems is not sound quality, but to make PA sound systems quiet and noise free.

hmm, not sure where you are getting this information. a transformer does not lower and raise its voltage to react to the load impedance, in fact the transformer hardly does anything at all to even power the amplifier most of the time. the stored energy in the reservoir caps supply power/transient response wrt the load and the transformer is only connected to the amp through the diode bridge for about 10% of the time. so the diode bridge and transformer are literally doing nothing most of the time. opamps can slew with the best of them, but current in most cases, for speakers anyway, is limited and many by themselves don't really have too fun a time driving low impedance headphones directly either

 

me, I prefer balanced for the bass response and speed, even for loads that you wouldn't think would need it, but single ended amps can sound fantastic as well in their own way, tbh although the dac1 is a good design, its hardly the last word and i'm getting a little bored of all this regurgitated O2, dac1, nwavguy diatribe.

 

not sure how AMB let himself go on record as saying balanced lowers output Z though

Edited by qusp - 10/18/11 at 11:50am

But how does a balanced amp improve (or not improve) these things? Crosstalk could help with soundstaging, but good crosstalk is not inherent to balanced amps. Many headphone amps have under 90dB crosstalk single-ended. So ultimately here wouldn't the measurement matter, not the design? A single-ended amp with better crosstalk than a balanced amp would be better for crosstalk, no discussion needed. The design helps, but isn't the most important thing.

 

I suppose my point is, balanced design has advantages and disadvantages, all of which a properly or improperly designed single-ended amp can meet. The issue isn't the design, but the performance. Discussing balanced vs. single-ended is a moot point without numbers.

Edited by Head Injury - 10/18/11 at 11:54am

Quote:

 

And others are getting bored of the "Hi-Fi design is magic and costs insane amounts of money and you can't measure it cos I heard it and stuff" approach. Each to their own.

 

Not saying that you said exactly that, I just can't see how you can object to what NwAvGuy, Benchmark Audio and the like do with their designs.