[LYuen]

Hence, why I shouldn't be forced to use 2.5mm balanced versus the regular 3.5mm jack. If there's going to be two DACs in the DAP, then they should work with both outputs. I really don't even know what balanced versus regular output means anyways. Judging by the numbers though, there shouldn't be a huge difference. I don't even know how easy it is to get a good, reliable 2.5mm header for my headphones that are all 3.5mm. Maybe there's different types? I don't know. So, I wanted to get a DAP that's fully functional with the 3.5mm jack. No gimmicks or tricks.

Unbalanced has 2 channels, one left and one right, plus a common ground which is kept at 0V so I don't count
So it can't use more than one dual channel DAC/AMP system (the 9018K + 9601K in 300R)
Balanced has 4 channels: L+, L-, R+, R-
The negative sides are not common, and what BAL does the reverse amplifying on the negative sides
Therefore only the balanced side can use the twin DAC/AMP.

That's the basic idea of "balanced output" on portable gear. This isn't exactly the same as the balanced on speaker.
I can explain more if anyone is interested

 

[LYuen]

Hence, why I shouldn't be forced to use 2.5mm balanced versus the regular 3.5mm jack. If there's going to be two DACs in the DAP, then they should work with both outputs. I really don't even know what balanced versus regular output means anyways. Judging by the numbers though, there shouldn't be a huge difference. I don't even know how easy it is to get a good, reliable 2.5mm header for my headphones that are all 3.5mm. Maybe there's different types? I don't know. So, I wanted to get a DAP that's fully functional with the 3.5mm jack. No gimmicks or tricks.

Unbalanced has 2 channels, one left and one right, plus a common ground which is kept at 0V so I don't count
So it can't use more than one dual channel DAC/AMP system (the 9018K + 9601K in 300R)
Balanced has 4 channels: L+, L-, R+, R-
The negative sides are not common, and what BAL does the reverse amplifying on the negative sides
Therefore only the balanced side can use the twin DAC/AMP.

That's the basic idea of "balanced output" on portable gear. This isn't exactly the same as the balanced on speaker.
I can explain more if anyone is interested.

"Here you see a 1kHz square wave signal sampled at 192kHz, being put out by a music app on android. On usual Android devices this signal would be resampled and mixed into the fixed 48kHz system audio stream, producing a digital output to the DAC like the upper picture. Whereas on the R6, DTA architecture bypasses Android Sample Rate Conversion (SRC) for all apps, the signal would pass unaltered to the DAC like the lower picture."

The SRC problem is not as significant as in the past now, especially on devices using new Qualcomm SOC (from S800 onwards)
You may take a look on the frequency scanning graphs from soomal.com
Only very few devices on Qualcomm shows significant distortion on 44.1kHz

As 300R is on S801, SRC isn't worrying on headphone output.
If there are headphone shops around you, you can verify this with Pioneer's newer devices, the XDP-30R.
It isn't based on Android and it provides different clocks for times of 44.1kHz and 48kHz soundtracks.
The 3.5mm output for 30R and 300R are of similar quality. (300R has better 2.5mm output)
You can prepare soundtracks of 44.1kHz (e.g. CD rips) and 48/96/192kHz (e.g. Hi-Res PCM)
and play them on both 300R and 30R
It shouldn't be significant.

Also, the bypass function is only useful for third party apps that don't emphasize on audio quality
Stock apps on 300R supports switching between 48kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz sampling frequency PCM output
Some third party apps also support this, such as Hiby's music app and Sony Music Center
Unfortunately, streaming apps generally don't support this.

 

[Andrew Harper]

the first time i inserted headphone plugs into the jacks on the 300r was that i thought i was going to cave the top in i had to put so much pressure to get them to seat. and yes, if you only think you have the plug engaged, the sound will be very bad.

/guy

Hiya, Sorry maybe bad choice of words on my part.

What I meant was pushing the earphones into my ears. When I applied a little more pressure they seemed to seal a little more and the general sound quality increased a little.

I was going to try a foam type earbud to see if that helped with the SQ. Worth a try.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Thanks for bringing that up. I double checked and triple checked. I BOUGHT THE WRONG ONE!!! Looks like Im going to have a 3.5mm as well. I will have a look at the one on your link and probably buy that. Will be editing my post.

Yeah I'm sorry. I looked at the link and thought "well, it could just be the wrong link" but thought I'd mention it just case. You can always do with a spare anyway

 

[pie man]

Balanced is highly overrated. Even with my 1000$ Angies I can barely hear a difference between balanced an unbalanced. Balanced out does have more control and headroom, but only slightly so. And again, we're talking 1000+ $ IEMs here.

I was tempted to buy a pair of balanced phones, but then I remembered I'm 68 and nothing is going to improve my ability to hear the difference in headroom.

 

[zombicube]

Update on my battery test upthread.

Ran four hours under the conditions cited above, checking the battery percentage every half hour. At one point during the test, podcatcher downloaded 2 episodes in the background while the music player was playing flac off a card.

Over the 4 hours of test, the battery went from 75% to 51%. So a burn rate of 6% per hour. Drain was fairly linear over this range. I won't know if drain remains linear down in the low percents unless I run a test down there… I might do that at some point, but not today, because I need decent charge after work. Also, I'm reasonably satisfied with my battery life so not super motivated to gather the data.

Final notes… the "Running Apps" report in Android settings indicates the following processes are going:
Settings
Podcast Addict
SVI settings
Com.qualcomm.qcrkim… something
Google Play Services (two entries)
Music (2 entries)
Android keyboard AOSP

 

[Andrew Harper]

I was tempted to buy a pair of balanced phones, but then I remembered I'm 68 and nothing is going to improve my ability to hear the difference in headroom.

Well the only advantage to using balanced on the 300R is some features are only output through the balanced connection. If you are happy though that's fine

 

[Lurk650]

Hiya, Sorry maybe bad choice of words on my part.

What I meant was pushing the earphones into my ears. When I applied a little more pressure they seemed to seal a little more and the general sound quality increased a little.

I was going to try a foam type earbud to see if that helped with the SQ. Worth a try.

Foam tends to thicken bass and kill treble. Not the best regarding SQ...IMO.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Foam tends to thicken bass and kill treble. Not the best regarding SQ...IMO.

Yes that's true, but that was the issue I was experiencing with the Pioneers. I was finding the treble a little overpowering. Mid range was fine, nicely detailed not at all tiring to listen to. Bass was a little weak to my ears, although I wasn't listening to bass heavy music at the time.

I have a spare set of Comply's just need to dig them out of the drawer. No harm in trying I guess

 

[/guy]

Update on my battery test upthread.

Ran four hours under the conditions cited above, checking the battery percentage every half hour. At one point during the test, podcatcher downloaded 2 episodes in the background while the music player was playing flac off a card.

Over the 4 hours of test, the battery went from 75% to 51%. So a burn rate of 6% per hour. Drain was fairly linear over this range. I won't know if drain remains linear down in the low percents unless I run a test down there… I might do that at some point, but not today, because I need decent charge after work. Also, I'm reasonably satisfied with my battery life so not super motivated to gather the data.

Final notes… the "Running Apps" report in Android settings indicates the following processes are going:
Settings
Podcast Addict
SVI settings
Com.qualcomm.qcrkim… something
Google Play Services (two entries)
Music (2 entries)
Android keyboard AOSP

great work! if the 6% per hour is linear and the percentage reading is consistent across devices it would mean 15-16 hours which is not out of line with the best results i've seen. all i can say is that when i'm sitting with it in my hand doing nearly anything with the display on, it drains 5-10x that amount. i can easily drain 30% in less than 30 minutes which is 60% per hour.

the lesson here has to be, listen without the display and use android as little as necessary. if i get a chance i will run a similar streaming test using tidal to see how much difference there is between listening from the sd card and using wifi continuously.

tks agn, /guy

 

[Hero of Time]

Unbalanced has 2 channels, one left and one right, plus a common ground which is kept at 0V so I don't count
So it can't use more than one dual channel DAC/AMP system (the 9018K + 9601K in 300R)
Balanced has 4 channels: L+, L-, R+, R-
The negative sides are not common, and what BAL does the reverse amplifying on the negative sides
Therefore only the balanced side can use the twin DAC/AMP.

That's the basic idea of "balanced output" on portable gear. This isn't exactly the same as the balanced on speaker.
I can explain more if anyone is interested.

The SRC problem is not as significant as in the past now, especially on devices using new Qualcomm SOC (from S800 onwards)
You may take a look on the frequency scanning graphs from soomal.com
Only very few devices on Qualcomm shows significant distortion on 44.1kHz

As 300R is on S801, SRC isn't worrying on headphone output.
If there are headphone shops around you, you can verify this with Pioneer's newer devices, the XDP-30R.
It isn't based on Android and it provides different clocks for times of 44.1kHz and 48kHz soundtracks.
The 3.5mm output for 30R and 300R are of similar quality. (300R has better 2.5mm output)
You can prepare soundtracks of 44.1kHz (e.g. CD rips) and 48/96/192kHz (e.g. Hi-Res PCM)
and play them on both 300R and 30R
It shouldn't be significant.

Also, the bypass function is only useful for third party apps that don't emphasize on audio quality
Stock apps on 300R supports switching between 48kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz sampling frequency PCM output
Some third party apps also support this, such as Hiby's music app and Sony Music Center
Unfortunately, streaming apps generally don't support this.

Thank you for enlightening me. I really didn't know what it meant, but I do understand now. If I were to ever use balanced mode, would the following adapter work?

https://penonaudio.com/audio-cable/3.5mm-cable/silver-plated-hi-fi-balanced-adapter.html

 

[coys13574]

Can anyone help me out here? I've through quite a bit of this thread, and having a hard time figuring out the answer. I'm about to order the XDP-300R to use with my OPPO PM-3s and I'm unsure what is the proper balanced cable type to order. Are any of these the correct ones? Are there any reputable, cheaper alternatives?

Would the "2.5mm TRRS Balanced Gold Straight Mini Plug" be the correct one here?
https://www.moon-audio.com/blue-dragon-cable-oppo-headphones-v3.html

Or here, would the O3-AK (Balanced 2.5mm TRRS to OPPO PM-3, Standard Wire) also work?
https://www.surfcables.com/products/oppo-compatible-cables?variant=14161154179

 

[Lurk650]

Can anyone help me out here? I've through quite a bit of this thread, and having a hard time figuring out the answer. I'm about to order the XDP-300R to use with my OPPO PM-3s and I'm unsure what is the proper balanced cable type to order. Are any of these the correct ones? Are there any reputable, cheaper alternatives?

Would the "2.5mm TRRS Balanced Gold Straight Mini Plug" be the correct one here?
https://www.moon-audio.com/blue-dragon-cable-oppo-headphones-v3.html

Or here, would the O3-AK (Balanced 2.5mm TRRS to OPPO PM-3, Standard Wire) also work?
https://www.surfcables.com/products/oppo-compatible-cables?variant=14161154179

It's the same thing. 2.5mm is TRRS

 

[coys13574]

this wasnt an official cable for the oppo.. it was a standard 2.5mm 4 pole to 3.5mm 4 pole (trrs cable) a very cheap one too.
so the earths may have been the wrong way round.. whatever it was it sounded weird like a wide dual mono..the vocals had no focus

But this led me to believe a standard TRRS might not be the cable needed for the PM-3? Sorry, I'm completely unfamiliar with balanced/unbalanced cables

 

[zombicube]

Questions about the failure mode involving the headphone jacks. (1) Has anyone had this problem happen recently, i.e. with one of the units ostensibly manufactured with sturdier jacks? (2) If so, when the unbalanced jack fails, does the balanced one still function? I.e., does it make sense to "save" one of the jacks to use after the other one fails?

I have tried to be SUPER careful about not stressing the jack that I use, and it's a drag. Would like to know for sure that it's still necessary to baby the thing. And it would be heartening to learn that I can switch to balanced down to road if the one I use frequently fails.

Thanks. Good forum.