[DelsFan]

Although not quite ready to employ the philosophy of "If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out," my two-channel equipment has mostly remained in boxes for the last five years.  So I’ve decided to "invest" in a nice headphone setup.
 
I plan on using a balanced headphone cable - so I'm looking only at headphone amplifiers with balanced outputs as an option.
 
However, if I purchase a DAC without a balanced output, I'd then have to use an analog interconnect between the DAC and Headphone Amp (let's say an "intermediate" interconnect in the range of $300/meter).
 
HERE’S MY QUESITON:
If I use a "regular" interconnect from my DAC to my headphone amp, am I fooling myself if I think I will still get the benefit of using a balanced cable (let's say in the range of $300 to $600) from my headphone amp to my headphones?  
 
 
For context,
Let’s say I’m planning on spending approximately $1000 EACH for a DAC, Headphone Amplifier, and Headphones, not including power cords, interconnects, or headphone cables.
 
Thanks for your assistance!

 

[Ike1985]

I am also wondering about this.  I currently use Mojo -> CDM -> IEMs and unfortunately Mojo isn't capable of balanced output but someday I may have a DAC that can do it.

 

[Mr Rick]

  Although not quite ready to employ the philosophy of "If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out," my two-channel equipment has mostly remained in boxes for the last five years.  So I’ve decided to "invest" in a nice headphone setup.
 
I plan on using a balanced headphone cable - so I'm looking only at headphone amplifiers with balanced outputs as an option.
 
However, if I purchase a DAC without a balanced output, I'd then have to use an analog interconnect between the DAC and Headphone Amp (let's say an "intermediate" interconnect in the range of $300/meter).
 
HERE’S MY QUESITON:
If I use a "regular" interconnect from my DAC to my headphone amp, am I fooling myself if I think I will still get the benefit of using a balanced cable (let's say in the range of $300 to $600) from my headphone amp to my headphones?  
 
 
For context,
Let’s say I’m planning on spending approximately $1000 EACH for a DAC, Headphone Amplifier, and Headphones, not including power cords, interconnects, or headphone cables.
 
Thanks for your assistance!

The only "advantage" I have found for owing a balanced headphone amp is the additional power it will typically provide. ( If you need it, and can use it.)
 
I asked the same questions as you, so I purchased a DAC with balanced outputs and two headphone amplifiers with balanced inputs and outputs.
 
I've tried them in every conceivable configuration, both balanced and single ended,  and honestly have not detected any sonic benefit of balanced over single ended.
 
I'm using ICs purchased on Ebay and Amazon, and am not of the mind to spend more $$$ in search of improved sound quality.
 
As always YMMV. As will those of others.

 

[TYATYA]

Balance vs unbalance.
No crossfeed R/L.(make more clear and have "distance" than stereo)
More power.

who known some diy job relate to cable and connector will know what happen in sound, when short circuit R- and L-. Doing it makes balance to became typical stereo configuation, so how change in sq is felt easily.

 

[Speedskater]

If your headphone amp (or any other component) has a balanced input, then you should use a balanced interconnect cable. If the previous stage only has unbalanced outputs, then use an adapter at the output.

An excellent single 3 meter (10 foot) balanced interconnect cable should cost less than $50.

 

[redkingjoe]

I invested heavily in my cd transport, dac and amp.

I used single end cable between transport before upgrading to balance cable. I asked an audio engineer about it before switching to balanced cable.

Here's his key advise:
1 using balanced cable is better in power gain and can drive very very long cables( hence a lot of professional setting use balance cable for they need real long distance cable)
2 the structure of the balanced cable is created to reduce noise and interference that might be induced

3 very important: there is true balance or fake balance instruments.

4 A true balance instrument basically needs to use double the parts of an ordinary instrument. ( something like the signal is divide into two half to run in a balance way). The cost to make a true balanced instrument is nearly double of an ordinary equipment.
5 A fake balanced instrument is only an ordinary instrument. It just includes a part( might be an ic) to convert normal signal to become balance signal for out or in purposes.
6 Fake balanced instruments hence will not enjoy the true benefit of running data in a balanced format. FAked balance will also induce pollution to sound quality ( as there are additional processing to sound unnecessarily).

So my friend opened all my CD transport, Dac, PRE and power amp to examine. My transport and dac were in true balance, and I upgraded the cable accordingly. I have another cheaper dac that has fake balance. when we open the fake balanced equipment, we can see that they only use a converter near the input/output stage.

The decision for changing cable formate is depending on whether the instruments were true balance or not. For fake balance equipment, there might be a gain in power but with slight degrade sound quality( e.g. Musicality). For true balance, the sound quality can be optimised and there is more power gain, particularly slightly better speed, bass' punch, slightly bigger sound stage.

 

[Speedskater]

The above post seems to have been translated from some other language, so I'm not sure what 'fake' & 'instrument' refer to.

But there are three legitimate types of balanced output circuits:
1] Active/powered outputs.
2] Impedance/passive outputs.
3] Transformer outputs.

All three work just fine, thank you.

 

[redkingjoe]

Hello from Hong Kong. Sorry for the confusion. English is only my second language.

The Wikipedia explains more clearly on "full" or ("true" in Chinese) balance vs "fake" balance design. Please take a look.

The high end dac/amp use fully balanced internal circuit design. A cheaper equipment uses a converter to convert single ended signal into balance data for transmission. A converter will usually degrade signal.

Hence, if my gears have both balance and single ended in/output, but the gears do not use fully balanced internal circuit design, data transferring with balance cable will inadvertently undergo conversion once or twice. The benefits of using balanced formate of transmission might be compensated by the degradation of the converter(s).

However, if my gears are fully balanced internal circuit design, it is certain of all the advantages from the gears and the balanced cable.

 

[Speedskater]

OK, I see the confusion. We are mingling two different balanced situations:
a] An external balanced interconnect system.
b] A unit's all internal balanced circuit.

So [a] is a very good interconnect system and often has lower noise than an unbalanced system.
While is a circuit design decision that has some pluses but also several minuses.

 

[Whitigir]

Speaking of Balanced. Any Correctly designed balanced circuitry will outperform any Correctly designed Single-ended circuitry. Though, some extremely good SE will be hard to observe the differences in comparison....but the fact remain true. The only down side of true balanced designs = Cost, form factors...it gets huge...or multiple pieces with the usages of Interconnect

 

[Speedskater]

For interconnect systems, balanced is better than unbalanced.
But it would be hard to support that viewpoint for internal circuits.

 

[gregorio]

HERE’S MY QUESITON:
If I use a "regular" interconnect from my DAC to my headphone amp, am I fooling myself if I think I will still get the benefit of using a balanced cable (let's say in the range of $300 to $600) from my headphone amp to my headphones?

Yes, there appears to be quite a bit of "fooling yourself" going on, although to be fair, it's not just you fooling yourself, you are being steered by marketing, etc!

The ONLY advantage of balanced is the rejection of interference picked up by the cable and only affects long cable runs. It's generally recommended that unbalanced cables runs should not be more than about 5m (16ft or so), although in the average consumer situation double that is usually perfectly fine. So, if you've got more than 5m between your DAC and headphone amp, you might notice a difference between balanced and unbalance if you have a very high level of interference in your listening environment. Otherwise the only difference you'll hear is the increase in amplification of a balance signal (which is the same as just turning your amp up by 6dB with an unbalanced signal). If you've got less than 5m between your DAC and amp then there will be no difference. BTW, the same is true between your amp and headphones, do you use a headphone cable longer than 5m?

G