[SomeGuyDude]

Depends on what?

I confess this is a little out of my comfort zone, all I know is that there's no way to say one or the other is better in a blanket statement. It seems to be one of those cases of trying both and seeing what happens. The primary benefit to balanced appears to be that it does give power to each side individually meaning less potential crosstalk as well as giving more power to the cans themselves, but that's not a guarantee that it'll actually yield a sound improvement.

 

[Paulo Abreu]

I confess this is a little out of my comfort zone, all I know is that there's no way to say one or the other is better in a blanket statement. It seems to be one of those cases of trying both and seeing what happens. The primary benefit to balanced appears to be that it does give power to each side individually meaning less potential crosstalk as well as giving more power to the cans themselves, but that's not a guarantee that it'll actually yield a sound improvement.

Other than power, balanced has less crosstalk since there is no common ground and its less susceptible to EMI interference. By other words, it should be better overall but not necessarly necessary...

 

[rutter]

What's the significance of crosstalk?

 

[phthora]

What's the significance of crosstalk?

Crosstalk is another source of distortion, and lower crosstalk (or better channel separation) contributes to more accurate stereo imaging. Everyone has an opinion on balanced vs. single-ended, but personally (for whatever it's worth) once I heard a pair of my headphones run balanced, I made it a priority to get balanced cables for all my headphones.

 

[Paulo Abreu]

What's the significance of crosstalk?

As @phthora said, lower crosstalk is better channel separation. Basically and as far as I've digged into the matter (amateur amateur, no in-dept knowledge, other may explain better), in balanced the amp feeds the HP with two signals, a positive (+) and a negative (-) with exactly the same signal as the positive but with negative current, its a push-pull design. This is true for both left and right channels, independently. In SE you only have a left (+) and a right (+), these two signals flow to a common earth so some interference/leakage can occur between channels.

 

[Kamurah]

What's the significance of crosstalk?

Another way to look at it....
As a SPEC, Crosstalk is BAD. As a FEATURE, they just change the name to CROSSFEED.

Just kidding...sorta.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

I will say the 650's power hungriness does make me want to pick up a balanced cable for it. I need to put the volume at nearly 75% for it to get to "headbang" levels.

You're a WILD MAN!

I am pretty cautious about where my volume is, but sometimes you just want to turn it up high and punch out your walls in the room, you know what i'm saying? (figuratively and close to literally)

So does driving headphones balanced make no sound improvement over unbalanced? I continue to get conflicting answers.

Understanding Balanced, versus single ended
Hey Rutter,

there is a lot of confusion about this topic so its understandable that you cant get concise answers all the time.

-Like the others mentioned, when running a headphone balanced it was my understanding that it will be able to have more power output period. Power isn't everything when it comes to amp design, since control of the driver is immensely important in addition. Some amplifiers that have single ended and balanced headphone outputs could be better utilizing the balanced internals, or the single ended internals more effectively.

-For instance- the Cavalli Liquid Carbon has a very good single ended output, BUT when running cans in the balanced output there was greater separation, and way more power. The balanced output (in my opinion and a lot here) was way better. This is probably because the Liquid Carbon was made to be a balanced amp, and the single ended is near an addition to it.

-Now, you could have an excellent/superb single ended amp that will smoke a good/great balanced amp. It all depends on the build of each, and not just that one is balanced or not.
I know of single ended amps that SMOKE balanced amps and vice versa.

-Since some cans are easier to drive then others, cans like Grado, Focal Clear, Utopia, Elear, ect ect don't need tons of power to get the driver to move back and forth effectively. SO if the amp excels equally in balanced output as much as single ended, I don't see the balanced output being that much of a difference.

My last and BIGGEST take away from all this- Always get your headphones terminated with a balanced cable, and then just get an adaptor that is balanced female to male single ended.
That way regardless of what kind of amp you get in the future you will be able to connect balanced OR single ended and never need to buy separate cables for each. There will be people here that will disagree with me since they don't want to add anything more to the signal chain by adding the adaptor. I think its a small price to performance (Very negligible if the adaptor is made well) for the ease of serious convenience and money.

I hope this helps you and others. and please, feel free everyone if you don't agree with my opinion/understanding on the matter.

ALSO

Who has a clear top for their 400i? I am curious people's opinion on wether they like the look or not. I think it looks DOPE with the clear top personally

 

[phthora]

My last and BIGGEST take away from all this- Always get your headphones terminated with a balanced cable, and then just get an adaptor that is balanced female to male single ended.
That way regardless of what kind of amp you get in the future you will be able to connect balanced OR single ended and never need to buy separate cables for each. There will be people here that will disagree with me since they don't want to add anything more to the signal chain by adding the adaptor. I think its a small price to performance (Very negligible if the adaptor is made well) for the ease of serious convenience and money.

That is damn good advice. My XLR/6.3mm adapter is my most used accessory.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

That is damn good advice. My XLR/6.3mm adapter is my most used accessory.

Yeah me too, I love the versatility of it! I feel like not a ton of people bring up the balanced adaptor bit when talking about this topic and I don't really know why... Why I wanted to put it in bold for others.

I want to do a BIG shout out to @Stillhart for the balanced adaptor knowledge btw. It was years ago that I learned that from him (random post of his I believe...) but I still like to give credit where credit is due. You have been a big help to me Stillhart. Thank you!

 

[148124]

Crosstalk and power are main differences. So from technical point of view balanced is always better but only for THE SAME application.

Overall sound signature difference depends on the application of the circuit. For example there is very popular "push-pull" application for balanced outputs and it causes generation of odd order harmonics, which may be very unpleasant comparing to Single Ended output (even order harmonics). Some people like this kind of distortion and thus find it better than more smooth SE output.

Sometimes application is completely difference between SE and balanced outputs - like in Pioneer U-05 DAC. SE section uses tpa6120a2 chip and BALANCED uses separated, discrete transistor section. The difference between outputs there is dramatic and this is not about crosstalk or power.

There is no gold advice, use your ears and pick better sounding output for you. There is no better advisor than that. And it's simple as that.

Just because something is balanced, you can't take it for granted that it's better. I know SE headphone amps, that would smoke like 90% balanced crap implementations.

 

[ninetylol]

So how is the balanced Implementation on the CMA400i?

 

[148124]

Haven't found this info yet. But to my ears they sound almost identical, maybe a bit more weighty and smooth on SE output and more analytic/detailed/sharp on BALANCED.

 

[Paulo Abreu]

Haven't found this info yet. But to my ears they sound almost identical, maybe a bit more weighty and smooth on SE output and more analytic/detailed/sharp on BALANCED.

+1. Exactly my opinion

 

[ninetylol]

The T60RP are already really detailed/clear - dont really know if they would benefit from the balanced cable except power. Guess i need to test it some day

 

[Eylrik]

Hi,

I am trying to use my CMA400i as a dac only with a tube amp (Darkvoice 336se) and it seems to work pretty well but...I cannot see a huge difference compared to when I'm connected directly to my CMA400i as an amp.
Is it because the Questyle, even in dac/preamp mode, does most of the job anyway? Or because my tubes aren't "tubey" enough?
Thanks for your help!