[mkmossop]

So I currently have a BTR5 and it's been recommended a bunch that I get a balanced cable to run the 600's better.

My question is, if I upgrade to the BTR7 and use it with the regular cable and it gets the headphones loud enough, will the sound still benefit from using a balanced cable? Or is the balanced cable simple to get more power out of the device?

I'm confused about this aspect of balanced outputs.

Thanks for any help!

 

[dunring]

The extra current on a balanced connector means you don't need as much volume to get them as loud. A balanced connector also can mean sometimes (not all the time) less interference and lower noise floor because of the design. The sound quality comes from being able to sometimes stay in low or medium gain, which always means the lowest distortion. Pause a song and max the volume, if you hear a hiss, then it's noise floor and you may get an audible benefit from a balanced cable. Also if you equalize with a preamp reduction, the extra current from balanced can help keep you from running out of volume wheel.
If you're not running into limits and have a quiet noise floor already, then it's not worth it. That extra current on a battery powered device can mean less run time if you go loud with it. Hart Cables makes a multi kit system I use, to swap out different plugs, to save wear on your headphone connectors if you switch frequently for different sources (like a home and travel amplifier).

 

[ClieOS]

What you should want from running balanced in this case is not 'louder'. Being a more powerful output doesn't always means being louder - that's a misconception. Power comes from both voltage (*mainly responsible for volume) and current (*main responsible for control). You can have two amps with equal loudness / volume / voltage output, but the one with higher current output capability (and thus more powerful) will likely give you better performance because it has more control over the drivers, which results in less distortion / more dampening. Of course, it also depends on how well the drivers respond to higher current. If the lesser outputting amp already driving the drivers very well, then adding more current might not result in any significant improvement. However, running balanced has two other benefits - first, slew rate (how fast the audio signal can swing from one end to another) will be double and secondly, channels separation will improve as there is no common ground channel. Both of these might give you a sharper and cleaner image.

 

[mkmossop]

The extra current on a balanced connector means you don't need as much volume to get them as loud. A balanced connector also can mean sometimes (not all the time) less interference and lower noise floor because of the design. The sound quality comes from being able to sometimes stay in low or medium gain, which always means the lowest distortion. Pause a song and max the volume, if you hear a hiss, then it's noise floor and you may get an audible benefit from a balanced cable. Also if you equalize with a preamp reduction, the extra current from balanced can help keep you from running out of volume wheel.
If you're not running into limits and have a quiet noise floor already, then it's not worth it. That extra current on a battery powered device can mean less run time if you go loud with it. Hart Cables makes a multi kit system I use, to swap out different plugs, to save wear on your headphone connectors if you switch frequently for different sources (like a home and travel amplifier).

What you should want from running balanced in this case is not 'louder'. Being a more powerful output doesn't always means being louder - that's a misconception. Power comes from both voltage (*mainly responsible for volume) and current (*main responsible for control). You can have two amps with equal loudness / volume / voltage output, but the one with higher current output capability (and thus more powerful) will likely give you better performance because it has more control over the drivers, which results in less distortion / more dampening. Of course, it also depends on how well the drivers respond to higher current. If the lesser outputting amp already driving the drivers very well, then adding more current might not result in any significant improvement. However, running balanced has two other benefits - first, slew rate (how fast the audio signal can swing from one end to another) will be double and secondly, channels separation will improve as there is no common ground channel. Both of these might give you a sharper and cleaner image.

Thanks both of you for the help.

So what I see is that yes, a balanced cable may still make an improvement in sound quality. So this is helpful and I suppose I will buy one of those.

And dunring, yes I was looking at Hart already thanks!

Do either of you have any opinion on the BTR7 vs. K7BT for the 600's? Possibly also the Edition XS's at some point.