Is going "balanced" really worth the hassle?

[megabigeye]

The best interconnect balanced cable - only seen once - were the ones that were equally Grey (note the spelling is key), White, and Black stripes in a golden ratio twist with rhodium plate over .999999999 Silver connections. They cost $2250/ft, but were clearly worth it.

I was trying to make a pun about the value of gold and ratios and why it costs so much, but it really wasn't working.

 

[ChaChaRealSmooth]

No. It is snake oil. Unless you are running 50 foot cable or or sitting on an electric transformer, balanced has no advantage. Subjective opinions are governed more by psychological factors that any physical reality of the sound. Try to find a valid independent double blind test that shows it makes a difference.

Yes, it makes a difference based on implementation. Try listening to a Yggdrasil SE out vs. balanced. Or better yet, a THX AAA 789 balanced vs SE.

I've never understood why some people insist on using their balanced-topology amps single-ended, or vice versa. Just use whatever design your gear is designed to run with.

That being said, in general you are correct. Sonically, there shouldn't be a reason why a good SE system should sound better/worse than a good balanced system. Hence why in my other post on this thread I used '>=.'

 

[MacMan31]

Yes, it makes a difference based on implementation. Try listening to a Yggdrasil SE out vs. balanced. Or better yet, a THX AAA 789 balanced vs SE.

I've never understood why some people insist on using their balanced-topology amps single-ended, or vice versa. Just use whatever design your gear is designed to run with.

That being said, in general you are correct. Sonically, there shouldn't be a reason why a good SE system should sound better/worse than a good balanced system. Hence why in my other post on this thread I used '>=.'

But if an amp has both balance and SE would it not be designed for both?

 

[ChaChaRealSmooth]

But if an amp has both balance and SE would it not be designed for both?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: Let's look at the Cavalli Liquid Platinum as an example. It has a balanced and SE output, and both technically work just fine. However, the Liquid Platinum is designed as a balanced amp and not only loses a lot of power power, but also sonic merits by going SE. Even the manual recommends only using the balanced output.

Other examples of the above are the Massdrop THX AAA 789 and the Schiit Mjolnir 2.

There are also some SE amps that have a balanced output by op amps, which is does not mean it's a balanced topology. Impressions on sound here vary by quality of the op amp used and by pure subjectivity. The balanced out on these amps may or may not also deliver more power, but this does not mean it necessarily sounds better.

 

[MacMan31]

Short answer: no.

Long answer: Let's look at the Cavalli Liquid Platinum as an example. It has a balanced and SE output, and both technically work just fine. However, the Liquid Platinum is designed as a balanced amp and not only loses a lot of power power, but also sonic merits by going SE. Even the manual recommends only using the balanced output.

Other examples of the above are the Massdrop THX AAA 789 and the Schiit Mjolnir 2.

There are also some SE amps that have a balanced output by op amps, which is does not mean it's a balanced topology. Impressions on sound here vary by quality of the op amp used and by pure subjectivity. The balanced out on these amps may or may not also deliver more power, but this does not mean it necessarily sounds better.

Well if I purchased the THX 789 I’d definitely want to use it balanced to take full advantage of its capabilities. But what if I end up with headphones in my collection that don’t necessarily need to be balanced?

 

[bagwell359]

No. It is snake oil. Unless you are running 50 foot cable or or sitting on an electric transformer, balanced has no advantage. Subjective opinions are governed more by psychological factors that any physical reality of the sound. Try to find a valid independent double blind test that shows it makes a difference.

I freely make fun of mega buck power cords (saw one for $5k in 1998), speaker cable, RA interconnects - and more - that ties directly into the 'Emperor has no clothes' effect.

But when things like:

* room treatments (ASC traps)
* absolute polarity (ARC SP-15)
* RCA DAC cable (some)
* speaker cable w/ extremely low speaker impedance (Apogee Scintilla, Dayton-Wright & stacked Quad ESL 57 stats) - cable with different capacitance and inductance behaved differently
* VTA adjustments for cartridges. I had an arm JVC UA-7045 that could be adjusted during play. Huge differences in many cases.
* balanced interconnects (lower noise and RF rejection over a long run (in my case - 16' length)).
* balanced vs SE in amps (Schitt Ragnarok rated: bal 15 wpc @ 32 ohm vs SE 3 wpc @ 32 ohms;
* balanced vs SE in amps (output impedance: bal @ 0.1; SE @ 3.3 ohms) (known to be crucial in driving headphones)

- have been proven in ABX testing - or are obvious in the case of the Ragnarok SE vs balanced - then we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[ChaChaRealSmooth]

Well if I purchased the THX 789 I’d definitely want to use it balanced to take full advantage of its capabilities. But what if I end up with headphones in my collection that don’t necessarily need to be balanced?

This kind of doesn't make any sense. Whether or not your headphone cable comes terminated in a balanced or SE shouldn't matter; in fact, it doesn't. I have heard power-hungry Hifiman cans get driven well single-ended. I have also heard cans being underdriven from balanced sources. Remember what I said; it's the amp topology that matters.

If what you're asking is "if I buy an efficent, low impedance headphone, should I still use the balanced out on something like the THX AAA 789," my answer is still yes. Your headphone requiring X watts of power should have no bearing on the connection used as long as the amp can deliver sufficient output.

 

[lugnut]

Well they do provide more power...which isn't snake oil at all.

You beat me to it, thanks !

 

[lugnut]

No. It is snake oil. Unless you are running 50 foot cable or or sitting on an electric transformer, balanced has no advantage. Subjective opinions are governed more by psychological factors that any physical reality of the sound. Try to find a valid independent double blind test that shows it makes a difference.

I agree with you that there are a lot of snake oil products in the world of audio. However, I would not say a balanced amp is one of them. It all depends on the quality and topology of the amplifier. It may not be worth the cost of admission to somebody, however to some it is. There are several reasons why some choose to go balanced. Painting ALL balanced amps as snake oil is wrong and adds nothing of value to the discussion.

 

[BLacklWf]

I don't think people bothered to click the link I posted before. So, let me do a copy and paste from my old post from other thread.
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I think there is a confusion on what 'Balanced' means for the rest of the audio world vs the Headphone world, so let me take a bite at it. TLDR - please go to the last paragraph directly.

Balanced signal input is about the signal purity. Unbalanced inputs have 1 signal and 1 ground per Channel while as Balanced inputs have 2 signals and 1 ground per Channel. With Balanced, one of the signal has inversed (negative/reversed) polarity. The fact it involves the inversed polarity seems to confuse people - but the function of inversed polarity is totally different between Signal Input vs Amp Output. I won't be able to explain all the physics behind it for my lack of my knowledge, but the inversed polarity on Signal reduces electromagnetic noise. Also, 2x the signal = 2x the power which helps when a cable is over 50 feet. That's why the pro-aduio cables are almost always balanced because they tend to run long plus there are typically many electromagnetic nosie inducing equipments nearby. In the headphone world, due to the fact our input cables are much shorter (a few feet vs 50-100 feet) and typically not surrounded equpments using a couple hundreds or thousands watts, there isn't much difference as far as the signal quality wise on Balanced vs Unbalanced inputs. That's why some of the best audio engineers in the world are keep saying there isn't much difference between balanced vs unbalanced because they do not recognize 'Balanced' actually means something entirely different when it comes to Headphone output - that on the 3rd paragraph.

Balanced (or differential) amp output for speaker is about controlling the diaphragm better. It's not about signal integrity anymore. Using inphase and inversed polarities, the amp can push and pull the speaker diaphragm rather than push only/pull only - the difference is passively letting diaphragm return to its original position vs actively controlling diaphragm return - which in my opinion has bigger effect as the diaphragm gets heavier/bigger. Headphone diaphragms are much much lighter/smaller than speaker diaphragms and therefore some of the best audio engineers in the world again says there isn't much difference when it comes to headphones. But, clearly some headphones such as Sennheiser HD6XX benefit greatly from push & pull more than others in my experience. Inversed polarity is involved here but this actually has nothing to do with the inversed signal above. I will discuss it on the last paragraph.

On Headphone, Balanced outputs means one more thing. That is fixing one fundamental flaw of Unbalanced/SE headphone out. SE Headphone outputs have has 2 signals and 1 return per stereo. Which means the return paths are actually electrically shorted!! In my humble opinion, Headphone SE/Unbalanced output is just a purely stupid design which is just lazy, sucky, inferior, and just totally doesn't make any sense at all kinda of design. Why would anyone spend over $5,000+ on a headphone system and decide to short the wires together - that is beyond me! Ex) I spent $1,000+ on my input/USB cables so that they will totally shield out any electrical noise at the most microscopic level making my signal pure! Now, let's celebrate it by physically shorting two wires together!! F#%$!! Really... that's is totally beyond me... Again, sometimes even the best of the audio engineers are confused on what Balanced means for Headphone out and keep saying there is no difference between Headphone SE Out vs Headphone Balanced Out. One is Shorted and Other is Not!!! Duh!!! For Headphone, Balanced output means it's finally a proper engineering. On top of that a true balanced amp like V281 has the differential design - therefore there is Push & Pull in driving the headphone diaphragm, but that's not what I'm trying to say here.

I just want people to know that Balanced Amp Output really has nothing to do with Balanced Signal Input. The inversed polarity for input is about the signal integrity. The inversed polarity of amp is about Push & Pull in order to control diaphragm better. On top of it, balanced outputs for headphone fixes the fundamental problem where the return paths are shorted otherwise. Someone may ask V281 has four amps (two amps for inphase and two amps for inversed), how does it then works with Unbalanced signals - where do inversed signals come from? The truth is that it flips and generate the inversed signals on its own - just like any non-headphone stereo amps do. Most audiophile solid state stereo amplifiers also have four amps, and they work perfectly fine with 'unbalanced' inputs just like V281 because the inverted signal is flipped by the amp regardless the input is Balanced or Unbalanced. Even when fed with Balanced signals, the amp only takes inphase signals and generate inversed signals on its own. The inversed input signal is only used to cancel the noise but not fed into the inversed amp. I said 'most' because there are amps which actually take the inversed signals from the balanced inputs, but to my knowledge those are rare and actually defeats the whole purpose of the balanced input design. The polarity inversion of the balanced signal input is about cancelling the noise and it was never meant to carry four signals to feed four separate amps - it was meant to carry two signals 'better'.

 

[bagwell359]

Here is a notable difference between SE and Bal output from Bal designed amp:

32 ohms load: SE output 3 watts, Bal 15 watts

output impedance: SE 3.3 ohms, Bal 0.1 ohms

To me that says - run it balanced, and I do.