[Fernito]

First off, sorry for such a noob question! The story goes as follows: a friend of mine, who is a very good electronic technician, worked on a balanced amplifier for his HiFiMAN RE-ZERO, and I asked him if he could make one for me too for my HiFiMAN RE-272. The question is: is it strictly necessary that the source has a balanced out too in order to all the "balanced-magic" to happen? My source would be a Cowon J3.
 
Thanks in advance for your replies guys!

 

[HamilcarBarca]

Quote:

The question is: is it strictly necessary that the source has a balanced out too in order to all the "balanced-magic" to happen? 

 
If you don't need a source with a balanced-line, you don't need a balanced amp.
 
See Balanced Line.
 
They don't improve the audio, they just help remove noise induced int your cables through EMI. It's extremely unlikely a balanced-line amp will do you any good at all. However, a good balanced-line amp sound exactly the same as one that isn't. balanced.

 

[Fernito]

I thought it actually improved the audio. Even joker in his IEM multi-review talked about differences in the sound between running the RE-272 in balanced and "normal" mode.

 

[HamilcarBarca]

Quote:

I thought it actually improved the audio. Even joker in his IEM multi-review talked about differences in the sound between running the RE-272 in balanced and "normal" mode.

 
I'm not familiar with the RE-272, but it's not hard at all to believe it improved the audio.
 
However, it wasn't due to balancing the line unless you've got major EMI problems. Likely, it was caused by mismatched performance in the amp between balanced and unbalanced modes.