[Garreth83]

Hi there,

I bought a pair of Shure Aonic 4’s. I liked the mids and it made my go to comparison album “and justice for all” sound the way I feel it was meant to sound.

i’m new to the world of headfi and drive these with the Fiio BTR5 and M11 plus. And i’m wondering, given the high sensitivity of only 7 or 9 ohms. Would it be wise to drive them with a balanced cable? I like the sound as is, but wonder if balanced would actually improve something, given that the BTr5 in balanced mode uses a dac for each seperate channel as opposed to one in unbalanced mode.

before I splurge on a cable, what are your opinions?




thanks !

 

[jobo]

Do you notice the sound improvement between having your btr5 connected via Bluetooth and via a usb cable to a source?

 

[jmwant]

Btr5 Has a 2ohm Output impedance on balanced output. The general rule is, the output impedance should be 1/8th of the IEMs impedance. Still, since there's a lot of balanced cable available in the market for cheap, you can try.

 

[jobo]

Hi, now the origin of the question might become clear. I was not aware of this rule.
I have an M11, BTR5 and ES100 and was using them with the oriveti new primacy, also with an impedance of 8 ohm. After four years of daily use, one of the monitors has a lower output. I have since a week replaced them by aonic 5's.
I use the fiio lc 2.5c cable since more then 2 years and was very happy with the result with the new primacy. The aonic's I even haven't listened using the standard cable. I only have used an adapter from 2.5 balanced to 3.5 unbalanced to notice the difference. The airness, placing and contour really improves, the layering in the music is much crisp, easier to detect, follow and enjoy the details; it upgrades your iem to a step higher.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

i’m new to the world of headfi and drive these with the Fiio BTR5 and M11 plus. And i’m wondering, given the high sensitivity of only 7 or 9 ohms.

That's not high sensitivity, that's low impedance.

High sensitivity on a headphone that you might conveniently use with an amp or a larger DAP is 100dB/1mW. High sensitivity with an IEM that you might want to be able to use on any decent smartphone with around 5mW output before noise and distortion become a problem (this also assumes impedance isn't an issue) would be around 110dB/1mW, 105dB/1mW being the bare minimum.

I bought a pair of Shure Aonic 4’s. I liked the mids and it made my go to comparison album “and justice for all” sound the way I feel it was meant to sound.
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Would it be wise to drive them with a balanced cable?

No way to tell for sure if there's any chance or that you will think it an improvement. The output impedance will double though and it might be enough to change the response, and that's what you're more likely to hear than just because there's more power.

Not that you absolutely should not try, just don't assume it will be absolutely positive if anything even changes.

before I splurge on a cable, what are your opinions?

Don't. Try an affordable cable first. If you can't hear a difference running balanced a more expensive cable won't matter. If you can and you're sure it's not placebo, maybe try a better, all copper cable - just note that even with a difference this bigger jump in cost will just squeeze out the last bit of change/improvement that you can on this set up.