[germay0653]

 
I figured Fostex had a few reasons to release their new detachable version with their own balanced cables offered. It got me curious to if I need to go that route when I buy or not.
 
Its confirmed that the drivers didn't change with the MKII right? It was just a detachable cable upgrade from what I have heard.

The cable connection is the only difference!

 

[AppleheadMay]

  I too am looking for possible amps. Maybe even a portable setup.
 
What do you guys think of going all balanced with the TH900?

   
Useless, makes no difference.

Improvement is in the perceptions of louder sound. Folks like it it seems. The advantage of balanced is for long cable runs, and th900 is an efficient can so. Now whitgir and others love it. Im a chord tt guy and se is the only option as the desighner also notes some issues in constructing balanced boards and wont do it. Then again im a cable upgrade guy and lots of folks dont approve so to each their own. My choice was made for me in ss archetecture so im loving se

 
Correct Whazzup. And an efficient pair of cans like the TH-900 doesn't benefit from it at all.
What's more Dillan, try some cans in balanced and unbalanced mode on the same fully balanced setup if you can. If you can't hear the difference then it isn't worth the money.
I tried a few cans balanced and unbalanced on my GS-X MkII which was connected both via XLR and RCA to my Marantz NA-11 S1s XLR and RCA outputs. No difference whatsoever IMO. Each is entitled to his own opinion of course.
 
Like Whazzup, I can hear cable upgrades, at least when it comes to headphone or speaker cables. With interconnects I can only hear the difference between copper and pure silver and usually I prefer copper. I hear no difference with power cables or digital cables.
A lot of people think that's BS too but we're entitled to our own opinion as well.
When I bought my LCD-XC and compared them to other LCDs for a few hours in the shop all with stock cables, once decided on the XC I put on a Nordost Heimdall 2 and both me and my wife immediately noticed the difference.
Same with an LA-900 with stock and Black Scorpion cable, I had both at the same time. It was like a lot more information came through.
But again, if you have the chance to try different cables on the same phones do so first. Again, if YOU don't hear the difference it's not worth it.
 
Some good brands I came across when it comes to headphone cables: Nordost (the real Norse, not the Norse that was forced to rebrand to Norne which I also tried), Jena Labs (or Lawton's Black Scorpion which is Jena Labs as well), Toxic Cables, Artisan Silver Cables. None of these come cheap.
I heard quite a few others as well but won't mention their names, many cable makers are just emptying your pockets, some at reasonable prices and some at truly insane prices for headphone cables but none worth their money.

 

[Dillan]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Originally Posted by AppleheadMay /img/forum/go_quote.gif
   
Correct Whazzup. And an efficient pair of cans like the TH-900 doesn't benefit from it at all.
What's more Dillan, try some cans in balanced and unbalanced mode on the same fully balanced setup if you can. If you can't hear the difference then it isn't worth the money.
I tried a few cans balanced and unbalanced on my GS-X MkII which was connected both via XLR and RCA to my Marantz NA-11 S1s XLR and RCA outputs. No difference whatsoever IMO. Each is entitled to his own opinion of course.
 
Like Whazzup, I can hear cable upgrades, at least when it comes to headphone or speaker cables. With interconnects I can only hear the difference between copper and pure silver and usually I prefer copper. I hear no difference with power cables or digital cables.
A lot of people think that's BS too but we're entitled to our own opinion as well.
When I bought my LCD-XC and compared them to other LCDs for a few hours in the shop all with stock cables, once decided on the XC I put on a Nordost Heimdall 2 and both me and my wife immediately noticed the difference.
Same with an LA-900 with stock and Black Scorpion cable, I had both at the same time. It was like a lot more information came through.
But again, if you have the chance to try different cables on the same phones do so first. Again, if YOU don't hear the difference it's not worth it.
 
Some good brands I came across when it comes to headphone cables: Nordost (the real Norse, not the Norse that was forced to rebrand to Norne which I also tried), Jena Labs (or Lawton's Black Scorpion which is Jena Labs as well), Toxic Cables, Artisan Silver Cables. None of these come cheap.
I heard quite a few others as well but won't mention their names, many cable makers are just emptying your pockets, some at reasonable prices and some at truly insane prices for headphone cables but none worth their money.

 

Wow thank you for all of the valuable information! I will look into those cable manufacturers and try hard to test different variations before making a purchase! I think I could save money by purchasing through certain companies that ship the product to you with the upgraded cables already attached and just skip the MKII.

 

[socks mk2]

[redacted]

 

[AppleheadMay]

  Wow thank you for all of the valuable information! I will look into those cable manufacturers and try hard to test different variations before making a purchase! I think I could save money by purchasing through certain companies that ship the product to you with the upgraded cables already attached and just skip the MKII.

 
I wouldn't go for a MKII since an extra connector is an extra weak link. Some people hardwire their phones with detachable cables.
Anyway, buying the Fostex Balanced cable is just gonna get you the same stock cable with a balanced connector.
I tried that with the HD650. Useless. That's why I didn't buy the balanced cable for my M1 as well.
Same with the LCD-XC that comes standard with an SE and a balanced cable, no difference. Put on the Heimdall 2 and thought ... what the hell!

 

[Whazzzup]

Balanced is superior to SE. As noted though the main benefits to balanced architecture are lost on the TH900 do to its very high effeciency and easy impedance curve. However, all the best amps and DACs are balanced, forcing them to use summed SE output for the TH900.

Err chord has some good products from Hugo TT to Dave and they are single ended. So I'll take exception to your rule, and provide a short quote from the desighner.


Sorry if this extends the debate on se or balanced but for those with tech interests and why chord follows se output only. This pertains to making the dac amp as quiet as possible reduce distortion and increase accuracy. This has no reflection on good dacs that provide balanced just the intricacies and challenges involved. Remember and to quote maybe a harsh metaphore in this instance, garbage in garbage out, here is rob watts quote pertaining to Hugo architecture.


Yes single ended is best, but it exposes other problems. I am talking here about the DAC itself. Conventional hi-end chip DAC's are fully differential which means that the DAC supplies a negative signal current OP and a positive signal current OP. This means that the analogue OP stage needs 3 op-amps - two single ended (SE) current to voltage converters (I to V) plus a differential to SE output op-amp. Then if you want headphone drive, then another stage is added. So you can see the analogue section is quite complex, with lots of active and passive components involved, all reducing transparency. Whereas Hugo is entirely SE, which means that it is one beefy OP stage, with one global feedback path - so we only have a single active stage and 2 resistors and 2 capacitors in the direct signal path. The OP stage handles both analogue filtering and I to V conversion. To make the analogue filtering easier, then the problem is transferred to the digital domain, which is why the noise shapers run at at 2048FS and it is digitally filtered up to 2048FS. Thus the raw DAC OP has very low out of band noise, which means that simple analogue filtering is needed.


Now the reason chips are always differential is that it cancels substrate noise, and other chip common mode noise, and of course with discrete DAC's we don't have this problem. But the other reason is that it hides the effect of the reference supply - the noise of the reference is cancelled at small signal levels (but not at high signals so this is a source of noise floor modulation which dramatically upsets SQ) and it also hides the OP impedance behaviour of the reference. So going SE means that you have to take great care with the reference supply, but you have to do this anyway if you want to eliminate noise floor modulation which is something that conventional chips are not very good at doing.


So Hugo's success is in part down to it's very simple and direct OP stage - but to do this I have had to be very careful with the references, and digitally filter to much higher levels than normal. Going balanced just adds to complexity, thus reducing transparency.

 

[AnakChan]

Personally for me, the TH-900 did benefit from balancing in a recent test when reviewing the Fostex HP-V8 amp (in my sig). I had 2x TH-900's both from v1.0 (non-detachable cables) but one of them manually terminated to balance. So I could compare them side-by-side.

As previously mentioned by someone that is subtle but obvious. Yes one needs to take into account volume differences but that's easily remediated with volume matching.

How worthy is it for balanced vs no- balanced? That's up to each individual. As much as I like a balanced TH-900 + HP-V8, that's too rich for my tastes & happy with my SE TH-900 + ZD custom SE.

 

[Whitigir]

For those who wonders between balanced vs SE. Go try one yourself and decide, these debates will just keep going on and on and on........but ultimately, only you can decide for yourself

 

[mdavid]

I would happily live with SE and ditch all of my high end balanced gear if I could fix the TH900's midrange issue. Amps, cables, AC cords, tubes, I'm game for anything.

 

[up late]

given that the th900's midrange dip is attributable to its fr, have you considered applying some eq? it's a far less drastic option than ditching your balanced high-end gear, and it's completely reversible.

 

[AppleheadMay]

I would happily live with SE and ditch all of my high end balanced gear if I could fix the TH900's midrange issue. Amps, cables, AC cords, tubes, I'm game for anything.

 
LA-900?

 

[brams]

Yes. In my opinion the LA-900 does largely address the midrange issue. The dip is still there, but MUCH more subtle than stock. Having said that do not expect the midrange of the hd800!

As far as balanced versus se is concerned notwithstanding the theoretical benefits, what matters is if these benefits are actually audible. My experience is that any improvements are more a result of the performance of the amp in balanced versus se mode. On amps designed to support both modes some are optimized to provide better performance in one mode relative to the other and in other amps performance is about the same. On my bha-1 for example I heard no difference between balanced and single ended with my balanced LA-900. On my Liquid Carbon which is designed to perform better fully balanced, I do. The main benefit of going balanced is therefore flexibility when used with an adapter to get the best from any amp.

I think this is why Fostex is adding the balanced connector .... conveniently timed to coordinate with the release of a new Fostex amp that is likely optimized for better performance when balanced. These people are no fools when it comes to business!

Incidentally this business sense also explains why no Massdrop variant is likely to provide better performance than their flagship. Why would Fostex basically kill sales of their own product unless it is a model they were planning to kill anyway? Instead it is a fantastic way to introduce the Fostex sound to a wider audience at a lower cost and test market slight varations in sound signature. No doubt the results will be incorporated into the design of their eventually new flagship.

My 2 cents anyway .....

 

[AppleheadMay]

Yes. In my opinion the LA-900 does largely address the midrange issue. The dip is still there, but MUCH more subtle than stock. Having said that do not expect the midrange of the hd800!

As far as balanced versus se is concerned notwithstanding the theoretical benefits, what matters is if these benefits are actually audible. My experience is that any improvements are more a result of the performance of the amp in balanced versus se mode. On amps designed to support both modes some are optimized to provide better performance in one mode relative to the other and in other amps performance is about the same. On my bha-1 for example I heard no difference between balanced and single ended with my balanced LA-900. On my Liquid Carbon which is designed to perform better fully balanced, I do. The main benefit of going balanced is therefore flexibility when used with an adapter to get the best from any amp.

I think this is why Fostex is adding the balanced connector .... conveniently timed to coordinate with the release of a new Fostex amp that is likely optimized for better performance when balanced. These people are no fools when it comes to business!

Incidentally this business sense also explains why no Massdrop variant is likely to provide better performance than their flagship. Why would Fostex basically kill sales of their own product unless it is a model they were planning to kill anyway? Instead it is a fantastic way to introduce the Fostex sound to a wider audience at a lower cost and test market slight varations in sound signature. No doubt the results will be incorporated into the design of their eventually new flagship.

My 2 cents anyway .....

 
Concise, unbiased and correct recap of the last few weeks of posts here IMO.
I'd only add that the HD-800 lacks bass and is unconmfortable for me. But the latter is a very personal matter.

 

[up late]

...As far as balanced versus se is concerned notwithstanding the theoretical benefits, what matters is if these benefits are actually audible...

x2

 

[BobJS]

Once again, I'll chime in with SE vs. balanced....
 
There is no intrinsic value for balanced over SE over reasonably short cable runs...... Crosstalk is most certainly negligble for 4-8 ft. runs. 
 
 
The real advantage for balanced is simply that it lets one take advantage of a balanced amplifier whose balanced output is probably (though not necessarily) superior than it's single ended output.  And the balanced output of a given amplifier may be better or worse than the SE output of another.   Let's keep things in perspective, people.