[J The Killer]

Balanced is double voltage. You want that with high impedance headphones. Otherwise it's not enough volume. Also, it's significantly less stereo crosstalk and absence of ground noise.

I agree that a balanced cable will have double strength and less noise etc. but does it really matter when cables are 1-2 meters?

@stancorrected - It is probably a faulty cable IMO

 

[CactusPete23]

I don't really understand the reason for a balanced cable for less than 2 meters. It would make sense if it is like 5+ meters where the signal quality may drop at longer distance and that too to an extent which maybe incomprehensible for humans. If I am missing something please enlighten.

Maybe Andro's don't need the extra power; but the Balanced out doubles the power. Something needed for more power hungry earphones. ( As I understand it, the Es100 only uses 1 amp for the 3.5mm and a second amp is added for the 2.5mm balanced.)

Personally I have not listened to enough with/without to comment on whether sound changes. In theory you are correct, it should not make a difference with the exact same amps. However so many people swear by balanced, that I hope it's a real thing !

One thing for sure, each individual hears the same amps and iems diferently. Look at the rave reviews, and then the claims of "rubbish" in the same threads.

 

[stancorrected]

Bad contact (noise) or high cable resistance - skew of frequency response. It can't be anything else imho.

Thanks for this. Forgive my ignorance but the Andromeda's are rated: 12.8 Ohms @ 1kHz Impedance. Where does this fit in the spectrum of high versus low impedance that might or might not benefit from a balanced output amp.

 

[Lurk650]

A while back in this thread, I mentioned how delighted I was with the ES100 and the way it worked with my CA Andromedas.
I was using the unbalanced 3.5 mm output and the Litz cable supplied by CA.. Given the enthusiasm on this thread for using the balanced output, I bought a $25 Brainwavz 2.5 Balanced Earphone Cable with MMCX Connectors from Amazon to try out. I thought the sound was significantly worse, so much so that I thought the cable was either defective, or poor quality, or I'd got the settings somehow significantly wrong in the ES100 app.
Has anybody any thoughts or opinions on the settings side of things or the quality of the cable I bought, or whatever else might be going on?

Get a different cable, that one was only good with my B400. There are lots of cheap and better cables on Amazon

 

[SubMash]

Thanks for this. Forgive my ignorance but the Andromeda's are rated: 12.8 Ohms @ 1kHz Impedance. Where does this fit in the spectrum of high versus low impedance that might or might not benefit from a balanced output amp.

It will benefit from balanced output. Not because of volume (it's low impedance), but from ground noise rejection and stereo crosstalk decrease and slightly flatter frequency response.

 

[SubMash]

I agree that a balanced cable will have double strength and less noise etc. but does it really matter when cables are 1-2 meters?

@stancorrected - It is probably a faulty cable IMO

If you have high impedance headphones - cable length has low effect on volume or FR. Hence the reason to do high impedance headphones for studios - long cables. But you need more voltage. Balanced output is 2x voltage.

 

[SubMash]

I agree that a balanced cable will have double strength and less noise etc. but does it really matter when cables are 1-2 meters?

@stancorrected - It is probably a faulty cable IMO

Also, ground noise comes from device itself. It's always there. Cable length can be zero, it's still there. So it's less such noise in differential aka balanced setup.

 

[SubMash]

Maybe Andro's don't need the extra power; but the Balanced out doubles the power. Something needed for more power hungry earphones. ( As I understand it, the Es100 only uses 1 amp for the 3.5mm and a second amp is added for the 2.5mm balanced.)

Personally I have not listened to enough with/without to comment on whether sound changes. In theory you are correct, it should not make a difference with the exact same amps. However so many people swear by balanced, that I hope it's a real thing !

One thing for sure, each individual hears the same amps and iems diferently. Look at the rave reviews, and then the claims of "rubbish" in the same threads.

Es100 turns off one amp in 1x current mode. Otherwise both are working either for double current or for double voltage.

 

[CactusPete23]

Thanks for this. Forgive my ignorance but the Andromeda's are rated: 12.8 Ohms @ 1kHz Impedance. Where does this fit in the spectrum of high versus low impedance that might or might not benefit from a balanced output amp.

Theory says that you want the output impedance for your amp to be at least 8 times lower than the impedance of your headphones... That assumes the impedance of the earphones/headphones are the same at all frequencies. For the Andros, that would say that you should be targeting for DAP with an output impedance of under 1.5 or so... Balanced outputs sometimes have lower output impedance on the same device(DAP/AMP) that has both. For Andromeda's, I would be looking for a device with 1 ohm or less output impedance. 2 Ohm would probably also be OK.
By itself, balanced vs unbalanced is not directly a measure of output impedance...

I think the ES100 is reported to be "around 1 Ohm" , but can't remember exact seeing an exact figure.

 

[antdroid]

A while back in this thread, I mentioned how delighted I was with the ES100 and the way it worked with my CA Andromedas.
I was using the unbalanced 3.5 mm output and the Litz cable supplied by CA.. Given the enthusiasm on this thread for using the balanced output, I bought a $25 Brainwavz 2.5 Balanced Earphone Cable with MMCX Connectors from Amazon to try out. I thought the sound was significantly worse, so much so that I thought the cable was either defective, or poor quality, or I'd got the settings somehow significantly wrong in the ES100 app.
Has anybody any thoughts or opinions on the settings side of things or the quality of the cable I bought, or whatever else might be going on?

Andromedas are supposedly very much affected by output impedance. Typically the Output Impedance when using balanced becomes double of the single ended output impedance. I dont remember what the ES100 OI is but maybe this is why the Andros don't sound as good using balanced vs SE.

I don't really understand the reason for a balanced cable for less than 2 meters. It would make sense if it is like 5+ meters where the signal quality may drop at longer distance and that too to an extent which maybe incomprehensible for humans. If I am missing something please enlighten.

Balanced out for this device can double the voltage and power. This is very helpful for certain headphones which need more power. I find it very useful with my planar IEMs and over-ear headphones. I also use it for pretty much every other IEM too because I can.

 

[J The Killer]

I have a HD599 and HD58X, so unbalanced should be ok? I cant even distinguish their sound signatures how am I possibly going to distinguish balanced vs. unbalanced.

 

[tuckers]

I only use unbalanced, and I have done a factory reset, although I think the device turned off before it completed it. Since it didn't lose my bluetooth pairings. I've already got a refund going and a new one being delivered tomorrow It doesn't stay on long enough to try out anything else. I haven't seen any errors in the app. I suspect the battery might be faulty as I didn't get good battery life out of it when it was working. Battery lasted about 5 hours with the lower current option selected. And my IEMs are efficient, not power hungry.

more details, if you got them. does the app say anything or report any sort of error code? What does the LED do, if anything? Did you try a factory reset? Did you try a firmware update? Does the device even boot into DFU mode and stay booted or does it turn off then too? Does the device keep turning off if it is being used as a USB dac?

And here's one from left field: if you are using a balanced cable, can you verify the pinout of that cable?

Also, have you PM'd @wslee or tried to contact customer support? You're well within warranty.

 

[monsieurfromag3]

I only use unbalanced, and I have done a factory reset, although I think the device turned off before it completed it. Since it didn't lose my bluetooth pairings. I've already got a refund going and a new one being delivered tomorrow It doesn't stay on long enough to try out anything else. I haven't seen any errors in the app. I suspect the battery might be faulty as I didn't get good battery life out of it when it was working. Battery lasted about 5 hours with the lower current option selected. And my IEMs are efficient, not power hungry.

Right, 5 hours is far from normal. Either something was wrong with the battery itself or your unit was stuck on some weird process that ate up autonomy and eventually caused some unrecoverable crash. Not many duds from the assembly line it seems, judging by the scarcity of negative feedback, so statistically you’ve taken one for the team and should be in the clear with your second, fresh unit

 

[stancorrected]

Get a different cable, that one was only good with my B400. There are lots of cheap and better cables on Amazon

Thanks for this. Can you suggest a couple you'd recommend. I'm interested in settling in my own mind the balanced versus unbalanced debate at least as far as the ES100 and Andromeda combination is concerned, but I don't want to spend a bucketful of money on it.

 

[Elzizo]

Thanks for this. Can you suggest a couple you'd recommend. I'm interested in settling in my own mind the balanced versus unbalanced debate at least as far as the ES100 and Andromeda combination is concerned, but I don't want to spend a bucketful of money on it.

Ursine audio makes great cables at affordable prices. I've bought a lot of cables from ursine and I've never been disappointed. Only downside is lead time can be long (2-6 weeks).