[Tjj226 Angel]

Hey guys
 
I recently saw a mod for the K702 where he turned them into balanced headphones. Now I know that balanced headphones allow you to change the volume of the two channels individually, but does it offer anything else?
 
I have the opportunity to get a balanced headphone amp, and I am wondering if it would make a bit of difference in terms of sound quality. 
 
Thanks. 

 

[eiouwa]

Yes it WILL make a sound difference, even though many people will tell you no and will try to underline it with scientific reasoning.
I once also had a balanced K701, now I got only a single-ended K701, but am going to get it balanced again for better sound.
It's though as with everything a matter of taste, too. Some people prefer single-ended.
 

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

Hey guys
 
I recently saw a mod for the K702 where he turned them into balanced headphones. Now I know that balanced headphones allow you to change the volume of the two channels individually, but does it offer anything else?
 
I have the opportunity to get a balanced headphone amp, and I am wondering if it would make a bit of difference in terms of sound quality. 
 
Thanks. 

 
Heya,
 
I get my headphones re-cabled to be balanced. Does it sound better? That's personal preference. I personally don't think there's any real sound difference that cannot be boiled down to simply saying it's the synergy with the amplifier. But I don't do it to match with balanced headphone amps (over-priced novelty at this point in my opinion). I do it to be able to use with speaker amps and bypass the whole headphone amp thing.
 
You can look into the science of "balanced" and see if it's worth it to you. Personally I don't think it's worth it unless you already have gear that requires balanced connections.
 
Very best,

 

[sonance]

Most balanced amps sound better driving their headphones balanced, and for good reason. There is no benefit to running balanced headphones to a single-ended amplifier (with adapters). Even there, some headphones respond more to balancing than others, because they benefit more from tighter control of the drivers, although this is something that theoretically a well designed single ended amp could do just as well. In reality some of the best amps are balanced, and they sound best when driving their headphones in a balanced configuration.