[eastside504]

ok excuse my newbness, but i cant seem to find a site that explain the basic of balanced headphone. I mean what i need is a basic drawing of connecting the amp outputs to a xlr connector and finally to the headphone. I'm in the group buy for the sennheiser plug and was thinking of making a balanced cable. Any website i should look at?

 

[aeriyn]

Basically, you get a 4-pin XLR connector or a pair of 3-pin mini-XLR connectors. Each wire from the headphone gets soldered to its own lug; i.e. there's no shared common ground.

This might help here.

http://www.balanced.com/faq/balanced.html

 

[eastside504]

thanks, that's what i needed. A website with basic Q&A so newbies like me can understand.

 

[Target1]

Is it worth making a balanced cord for the 580's? Never heard of anyone doing this, so maybe there is some reason that I don't know about preventing people.

Mark

 

[Daroid]

Only if your whole system is balanced to begin with, else it would be pointless (and you can't connect the headphones to an unbalanced one either - unless you use XLR for unbalanced use as connector)

 

[aeriyn]

Changing out the stock cable in favor of a balanced XLR cable is only necessary if you are running the cans off of a true dual-mono amplifier, such as the balanced Dynahi.

 

[bg4533]

Here is a link to AMBs diagram that shows how to hook a Dynahi up for balanced operation. The same pretty much applies for most amps.

I suggest you wire your Senn cables with 4 wires all the way to the plug. If you ever want to change them to balanced all you have to do is chop off the plug and solder on a new connector (4 pin XLR or 2x1/4" mono or a few other choices.)

 

[eastside504]

well my plans are to save up and get a benchmark DAC1 in the future to use with a DIY balanced cable to hd650.

 

[Edwood]

I think many people get confused with "balanced" headphones when they should really be called "Dual Mono"(with discrete grounds). I have not heard of a pair of headphones that can intepret both inverting and noninverting signals.

-Ed

 

[skyskraper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood I think many people get confused with "balanced" headphones when they should really be called "Dual Mono"(with discrete grounds). I have not heard of a pair of headphones that can intepret both inverting and noninverting signals. -Ed

this is what ive also been confused on in the past. then i worked out what people were talking about.

 

[Garbz]

Somehitng I don't get in AMB's picture. If there's a balanced input shouldn't it go through an unbalancing circuit? I mean isn't the point of it so that at the very last stage the phase on pin 3 is reveresed to cancel any noise picked up during the movement of the signal through the amp?

Also considering how different the wiring diagram looks, just how is that switch on the back of the Dynahi Reference (www.headamp.com) supposed to work?

 

[dip16amp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Somehitng I don't get in AMB's picture. If there's a balanced input shouldn't it go through an unbalancing circuit? I mean isn't the point of it so that at the very last stage the phase on pin 3 is reveresed to cancel any noise picked up during the movement of the signal through the amp? Also considering how different the wiring diagram looks, just how is that switch on the back of the Dynahi Reference (www.headamp.com) supposed to work?

The switch on the back of the balanced reference allows selection between the XLR balanced input connectors and the RCA unbalanced connectors. When an unbalanced source is used, the unused negative inputs are tied to ground.
When a balanced source is used, it provides both the positive and the negative signals for each channel and they both go through the amp to the headphones. Each earpiece has a positive signal and a negative signal connected (no ground connection).

 

[amb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Somehitng I don't get in AMB's picture. If there's a balanced input shouldn't it go through an unbalancing circuit? I mean isn't the point of it so that at the very last stage the phase on pin 3 is reveresed to cancel any noise picked up during the movement of the signal through the amp?

No. The "cancelling of noise" occurs by virtue of the fact that the headphone transducer is bridged across the outputs of the + and - amplifiers. Any common-mode noise is cancelled right at the headphone because we're using the difference signal between the two outputs.

 

[Garbz]

Ahhh ok i understand that now.

Now i wish i built a balanced dynalo since my pre-amp has balanced outputs :S

 

[dip16amp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Ahhh ok i understand that now. Now i wish i built a balanced dynalo since my pre-amp has balanced outputs :S

Just build a another dynalo and use the first one for the left channels and the second one for the right channels.