[BaTou069]

I know I've come to the right place to discuss this:

When using balanced amps, what would be the theoretical benefit in using a DAC with balanced topology VS a regular SE one?
Or: What is the theoretical benefit in using a balanced DAC no matter the amp?

AFAIK: Benefits of balanced amps are being able to use longer wires without sound degradation & potential for 4x more power (if the manufacturer decides to implement it like that)

Seeing so many modern DAPs and DAC/AMPs going the full balanced route nawadays, I'm asking myself: why?
Why would a balanced DAC add anything, especially if the amp in DAPs/DacAmps are so close to each other.

It's not as if a single DAC chip would perform better doing one channel only VS 2, or is it?

 

[msing539]

Running balanced, every DAC I've personally used puts out more power than running SE.

On the Ares II, I think it's 2 Vrms SE vs. 4 Vrms XLR.

 

[BaTou069]

Running balanced, every DAC I've personally used puts out more power than running SE.

On the Ares II, I think it's 2 Vrms SE vs. 4 Vrms XLR.

So the benefit would be that you don't need as powerful amps as with SE Dacs? Added that as an answer

 

[sander99]

Running balanced, every DAC I've personally used puts out more power than running SE.

So the benefit would be that you don't need as powerful amps as with SE Dacs? Added that as an answer

I assume @BaTou069 is talking about a pure DAC (without an amp). And @msing539 seems to be talking about a DAC/amp combo?
Anyway: if you have a seperate DAC and amp, a higher input signal voltage to the amp is not going to give it more power. Only it could be that a lower input voltage doesn't let the amp reach it's maximum power (if the gain of the amp can not be set high enough to reach the maximum output voltage with the given input voltage). But to solve that by switching to a balanced DAC is crazy. Better to use a DAC and amp that fit together with respect to the input and output levels and the gain.

 

[lantian]

I know I've come to the right place to discuss this:

When using balanced amps, what would be the theoretical benefit in using a DAC with balanced topology VS a regular SE one?
Or: What is the theoretical benefit in using a balanced DAC no matter the amp?

AFAIK: Benefits of balanced amps are being able to use longer wires without sound degradation & potential for 4x more power (if the manufacturer decides to implement it like that)

Seeing so many modern DAPs and DAC/AMPs going the full balanced route nawadays, I'm asking myself: why?
Why would a balanced DAC add anything, especially if the amp in DAPs/DacAmps are so close to each other.

It's not as if a single DAC chip would perform better doing one channel only VS 2, or is it?

Making a device that has two DAC chips one for each channel. Improves dynamic range by 3db. Pretty much makes crosstalk between the channels close to impossible. Could be said improves sound stage.
Other than that that's about it, there can be more of them per channels in which case the improvements would be smaller, but still there. Also makes DAC chip life easier, if I may say so.
Now let's get down to balanced/differential output.
This has nothing to do with DAC chip count. Almost every single DAC chip manufactured in the last decade has differential output by default. While every single delta sigma chip has it period. Making use of the full differential output of the chip only opens up rest of the system for all of its benefits, being noise rejection, perfect channel separation, and higher voltages.
My personal opinion being that DACs output , at least internally all the way through to low pass filter should be differential and stay like that until it has gone through this stage, at which point it can be summed into se signal with pretty much no loss of quality whatsoever. The amplifier/buffer stage should be the one that summs them, and offers single ended output. Done right there will be absolutely no loss to speak of.
Having balanced connections on portable devices makes sense, cause of the limited voltage these devices can give out. By going balanced max voltage attainable is 4 times more than in se mode.Yet distortion it creates is more nasty sounding than single ended stages. Its an mostly acceptable tradeof to get a lot more power out of smaller battery powered devices. For a desktop setup there is absolutely no reason to go balanced(not quite, if your dealing with constant noise picked up by cables, then balanced interconnects would solve that problem, only reasont to do it here). Single ended setup would be better in most cases.

 

[sander99]

Having balanced connections on portable devices makes sense, cause of the limited voltage these devices can give out. By going balanced max voltage attainable is 4 times more than in se mode.

You probably mean voltage 2 times, hence power 4 times.

 

[ThEvil0nE]

I wouldn't care less on how many DAC it has, one is all I need. It is in the amp section where balanced or having two discrete amp matters. There are indeed advantages of having the amp section balanced but when you start volume matching vs single ended, difference will be miniscule, on good amps that is. I like the added headroom I get in balanced, mostly.