[vinyl addict]

Just a few questions about balanced connections. To my understanding, in order to have a "balanced" system, the amp or source must be fully balanced internally....please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) What are the benefits of having a balanced system vs. unbalanced?
2) If the headphone cable and amp have balanced connections (given that the amp is balanced internally) but the source does not balanced connections, will the system still be "balanced"?

 

[vinyl addict]

- title edited -

 

[humanflyz]

This is what I know about balanced amplification, so don't blame me if I misunderstood something.

1) Benefits: lower noise due to eliminating the common ground, thus resulting in blacker background; doubling the slew rate, thus increasing transient response; doubling output power, thus giving the headphones more power
2) And as far as I know, the entire audio chain, that is the source, amp, and headphones must be fully balanced in order to those benefits to kick in.

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by humanflyz 2) And as far as I know, the entire audio chain, that is the source, amp, and headphones must be fully balanced in order to those benefits to kick in.

Depends. If the amp has circuitry to internally convert a single ended (RCA) input to balanced (via an inverter, etc) then you can get partial benefits even with an unbalanced source. You won't get the balanced noise rejection benefit on the input stage of the amp. You will get the slew rate doubling and extra driving power of differential drive. If the amp doesn't have this then there's really no benefit and nearly half of that balanced amp is going to waste.

Of course it's still best to have a truly balanced source with multiple DACs to handle the inverse signal, feeding into a balanced amp with balanced cables.

 

[vinyl addict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by humanflyz And as far as I know, the entire audio chain, that is the source, amp, and headphones must be fully balanced in order to those benefits to kick in.

So if a headphone connected to amp via XLR and amp connected to source via non-XLR subsequently negate the balanced chain?

 

[nikongod]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinyl addict So if a headphone connected to amp via XLR and amp connected to source via non-XLR subsequently negate the balanced chain?

if you use a balanced chain back to the dac you can reduce some of the distortions of the dac circuitry.

yes, its true, you can eleiminate distortions that are not measureable...

it is of advantage if you have a long cable run from your source to your amp, or you are in a "high em noise" envyroment.

 

[vinyl addict]

Thanks for all the input people. Just wanted to make sure....looks like I won't be needing a balanced setup after all.

 

[Kalidor]

OK guys.. just to make sure that I understand everything I have read so far.

If I have a CDP with balanced outputs and it feeds into any amp with balanced inputs and this amp has balanced outputs which feeds into my balanced headphones........ then.. technically I have a balanced rig?????

 

[humanflyz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalidor OK guys.. just to make sure that I understand everything I have read so far. If I have a CDP with balanced outputs and it feeds into any amp with balanced inputs and this amp has balanced outputs which feeds into my balanced headphones........ then.. technically I have a balanced rig?????

Just because an amp has balanced inputs doesn't mean it's fully-balanced.

 

[alex_cs]

so how do you know?

does anyone feel like actually explaining how do attain a balanced system as per the thread?

if i have balanced hd600's, give me some examples of products, dacs and amps that are fully balanced.

if you run from a juli@ to a dac via coax, and the rest of the chain is fully balanced, does this mean you get a fully balanced system, or do you need some soundcard that outputs balanced somehow?

 

[Konig]

Is stax 007t and omega 2 fully balanced??

Sorry for the noob question. I only see single cable from omega so i was wondering.