I love this! vague criteria for the cause, vague subjective description of the changes relative to an unspecified reference. and yet it reads as a statement
Yeah I know I should be a politician.
I love this! vague criteria for the cause, vague subjective description of the changes relative to an unspecified reference. and yet it reads as a statement
No intention to start a war here
Have read a bit on the SE and balanced thing and opinion seems to be divided depending on where one looks. Technically seems to make little difference but aurally, the opinion is all over the place.
Will have look up the Topping. Thank you.
... Balanced connection will have tangible benefits for speaker wiring when the cables are very long (30 ft, 50 ft, 100 ft. or more, resulting in less power loss that would result from increased resistance (impedance))....
you've got the right view on the situation. what's left is to interpret it. if globally a design choice leads to testimonies that are all over the place, the logical interpretations should be that there is perhaps no clear correlation between that design choice and sound, or maybe that many of the people giving feedback can't test for crap. in this case I'm of the belief that we're dealing with a generous mix of both.No intention to start a war here
Have read a bit on the SE and balanced thing and opinion seems to be divided depending on where one looks. Technically seems to make little difference but aurally, the opinion is all over the place.
Will have look up the Topping. Thank you.
It’s been proven that the difference if any is minimal on a 9 ft cable. Balanced connection will have tangible benefits for speaker wiring when the cables are very long (30 ft, 50 ft, 100 ft. or more, resulting in less power loss that would result from increased resistance (impedance)). On headphones, it is a myth that it balanced wiring will sensibly change the sound.
As you say, balanced has benefits for long cable runs, as it is constructed in a way that rejects noise in a way that single ended does not. As far as I know, that is exactly what balanced connection was made for; to reject electrical noise better in long cable runs, mainly for studio and live performace use.
In shorter runs (like the typical headphone cable) the noise picked up from the environment would be minimal in most cases, and the better noise rejection of balanced would be a minimal advantage.
I do think that balanced may still sound better than single ended for headphone use in some cases, but not just because they are balanced; please let me explain my thoughts:
1. Power. Balanced amps often can output more power than single ended. This of course means more voltage and higher volume, but I think it also means they can drive and sink higher current and I further think that that may enable more control on harder to drive diaphragms like the 300 ohm in HD6-series making them sound better. However, a single ended amp that has the same amount of power would be able to drive the diaphragms with the same amount of control.
1b. Amps offering both balanced and single ended often have more power available in balanced, and because of that extra power in balanced may be able to drive the headphones better.
2. Summing. Amps offering both balanced and single ended often use some sort of summing circuit to provide the single ended output. This means that not only is the single ended output often less powerful, we are at the mercy of the quality of the summing, which could be everything from almost flawless to not so great and maybe even quite bad. This can make it hard to compare balanced and single ended.
TL;DR: I believe that balanced can sound better than single ended, especially with higher impedance headphones, but not because it is balanced but because it is often also higher power and the single ended output of such amps may be hampered by being of less power and the workings of the summing circuit.
TL;DR on the TL;DR: It’s not because it’s balanced that makes the difference, it’s the quality and power of the amp.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts and speculations on the subject..
I have to add to the above
3. If your Dac is fully balanced by design then you have to use a balanced amp in order to utilise it's full
potential and not use the summed single ended out.
Balanced dacs are designed to sound better from the blanced out of course.
4. Same applies to dac/amp units or daps that are designed for balanced operation , in that case they sound ''better'' from the
balanced out which usually is cleaner with greater separation and wider stage.
As you say, balanced has benefits for long cable runs, as it is constructed in a way that rejects noise in a way that single ended does not. As far as I know, that is exactly what balanced connection was made for; to reject electrical noise better in long cable runs, mainly for studio and live performace use.
In shorter runs (like the typical headphone cable) the noise picked up from the environment would be minimal in most cases, and the better noise rejection of balanced would be a minimal advantage.
I do think that balanced may still sound better than single ended for headphone use in some cases, but not just because they are balanced; please let me explain my thoughts:
1. Power. Balanced amps often can output more power than single ended. This of course means more voltage and higher volume, but I think it also means they can drive and sink higher current and I further think that that may enable more control on harder to drive diaphragms like the 300 ohm in HD6-series making them sound better. However, a single ended amp that has the same amount of power would be able to drive the diaphragms with the same amount of control.
1b. Amps offering both balanced and single ended often have more power available in balanced, and because of that extra power in balanced may be able to drive the headphones better.
2. Summing. Amps offering both balanced and single ended often use some sort of summing circuit to provide the single ended output. This means that not only is the single ended output often less powerful, we are at the mercy of the quality of the summing, which could be everything from almost flawless to not so great and maybe even quite bad. This can make it hard to compare balanced and single ended.
TL;DR: I believe that balanced can sound better than single ended, especially with higher impedance headphones, but not because it is balanced but because it is often also higher power and the single ended output of such amps may be hampered by being of less power and the workings of the summing circuit.
TL;DR on the TL;DR: It’s not because it’s balanced that makes the difference, it’s the quality and power of the amp.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts and speculations on the subject..
I agree with your thoughts.
Balanced is not necessarily better than single ended, but I agree with you on the fact that it is preferable to go Balanced all the way (DAC, amp, cable) or else single ended all the way to optimize the sound. I wouldn’t put SUV tires on my Sports coupe Mercedes and vice versa...
in conclusion, I agree with your general view, but not with some of your hypotheses about why stuff happen. I also take your TL;DR:s amps are doing a good job with a headphone, or they're not. so let's shake on this