[itsborken]

With RSA and iBasso posting information on their upcoming balanced portables designed for IEMs, is this something that sparks interest in the broader community or is it a niche segment? Do you forsee vendors producing balanced portable sources in the near term?

 

[Lil' Knight]

I must have missed it. When did iBasso announce the info about their balanced portable amps?

 

[xuan87]

Quote:

Originally Posted by itsborken /img/forum/go_quote.gif With RSA and iBasso posting information on their upcoming balanced portables designed for IEMs, is this something that sparks interest in the broader community or is it a niche segment? Do you forsee vendors producing balanced portable sources in the near term?

there probably won't be a..... huge market for these. i know for the RSA protector, it works with a normal source, like the ipod, so i doubt that many will change their source. i feel that it is the iem cables where the market lies.

 

[itsborken]

ibasso balanced amp.

a little more meat to the pictures; showing four socketed amps(or 2+2 buffers). The 'balanced input' is interesting...

 

[xuan87]

posted by itsborken a second earlier

 

[aj-kun]

ahhhh great seen their pictures, now its gonna be another 4 pin versus 2 connector war for supremacy xD

 

[Lil' Knight]

Quote:

Originally Posted by itsborken /img/forum/go_quote.gif ibasso balanced amp. a little more meat to the pictures; showing four socketed amps(or 2+2 buffers). The 'balanced input' is interesting...

Thanks. Never saw it before.

Funny that they chose 2x mono jacks for balanced outputs.

 

[itsborken]

Works I guess. If mini xlr-4 connectors were cheaper I guess they'd be considered too.

 

[Lil' Knight]

I don't think price plays a role here. Size matters. The mono jacks are much smaller than the XLR 4-pin jack.

 

[itsborken]

mini...switchcraft mini xlr spec sheet Could probably justify the size they take for the addl power balanced opamps etc are going to draw.

 

[jamato8]

With all the very fine IEM's, especially the JH13's and the easy conversion to a balanced cable for these IEM's it seems like a no brainer. The sound is more open and layered than single ended. The size isn't any larger than a single ended amp and run time is as long.

I would say 2010 and beyond.

 

[Lil' Knight]

Whatever it might be, the first thing to do is to agree on a standard connector. Would be a disaster for customers if each manufacturer used their own connector choice.

 

[itsborken]

The folks reterminating everything will make a bundle. I can't think of any portable sources I have that are worthy of such a config though, especially for listening at work with the many interruptions etc. I don't have expectations that sony/apple/etc are going to move to balanced source outputs.

 

[qusp]

I keep on saying, there are better options than those mentioned above if people would just listen. it would be VERY annoying for an inferior balanced connector to be integrated as the new standard (remember beta vs VHS). check out the ODU minisnap and neutrik mincon connectors. far superior to 4 pin XLR, mini 4 pin XLR or 2 x mono. also for sure balanced sources are important for a truly balanced signal path, but it is actually not such a difficult circuit to convert a single ended signal to balanced

 

[PFKMan23]

I don't know about it being the year of the portable balacned IEMs. But from where I stand, there are no sources that have balanced outs. FWIW, balanced being "the future" was a theme that came about when the Lavry DA-10 was released, as that was seen as a breakthrough in cheap balacned sources. Here we stand years later and it really isn't the case. SO I think that this is a way premature assumption.