[JSBachFan]

Balanced 4.4 vs. unbalanced 3.5 (again?) - all technicality fans can stop reading here

Nice, but a bit old fashioned player, you might think. But why the hell is he using a mediocre adaptor to 3.5 for his nice Indigo when he has the option to use balanced 4.4 directly?

Well, what follows now is for the people who look for musicality (term described often enough) in the music reproduction of DAPs.
A fellow HeadFi (@shizzin ) guy texted me the other day, if I also find 3.5 more musical then 4.4. I turned to only use balanced 2.5/4.4 goes back to the times of my FiiO X5 (i) years ago. On that player, I compared it a bit and decided, that balanced is clearly better. And I never went back. Not even for a minute with any player that came later. What a stupid mistake ...
As you can see in my signature, I have some respected DAPs lying around. Over the last few days I compared on all of them 3.5 unbalanced against 4.4. I didn't want to rush to publish the results here, because I am sure some people will just declare me nuts. But here I go. It might help some people and helping is the mission, when you publish something ...
On my three best players being Shanling M9, P6 Pro and WM1Z to my reception, 3.5 unbalanced is clearly more musical than balanced 4.4. Not a bit but a lot. It basicaly takes me seconds with emotional music to hear it. A tiny melodic piece from a piano or guitar and it is clear.
For everybody, who it is into the technicalities (resolution, stage etc.) the story might still be the other way round. Yes, balanced on all these players sounds cleaner with better separation and maybe better resolution. But I strongly advise people that look for musicality mainly to try 3.5. Adaptors are cheap (bought mine ages ago from FiiO for the Dragonfly). Owning lots of 4.4 cables I am not really happy to have found this out so late. But better late then never. I will only use 3.5 from now on.

Since @shizzin owns an AK DAP (SP2K CU), I thought we might have a general topic. But when as the last of my DAPs I made the same experiment with my Shanling M8 to my big surprise I found 4.4 balanced better. Also on the musical level. So you have to trust your own ears, when you are open to make this experiment on whatever other player you have.

 

[endless402]

Balanced 4.4 vs. unbalanced 3.5 (again?) - all technicality fans can stop reading here

Nice, but a bit old fashioned player, you might think. But why the hell is he using a mediocre adaptor to 3.5 for his nice Indigo when he has the option to use balanced 4.4 directly?

Well, what follows now is for the people who look for musicality (term described often enough) in the music reproduction of DAPs.
A fellow HeadFi guy texted me the other day, if I also find 3.5 more musical then 4.4. I turned to only use balanced 2.5/4.4 goes back to the times of my FiiO X5 (i) years ago. On that player, I compared it a bit and decided, that balanced is clearly better. And I never went back. Not even for a minute with any player that came later. What a stupid mistake ...
As you can see in my signature, I have some respected DAPs lying around. Over the last few days I compared on all of them 3.5 unbalanced against 4.4. I didn't want to rush to publish the results here, because I am sure some people will just declare me nuts. But here I go. It might help some people and helping is the mission, when you publish something ...
On my three best players being Shanling M9, P6 Pro and WM1Z to my reception, 3.5 unbalanced is clearly more musical than balanced 4.4. Not a bit but a lot. It basicaly takes me seconds with emotional music to hear it. A tiny melodic piece from a piano or guitar and it is clear.
For everybody, who it is into the technicalities (resolution, stage etc.) the story might still be the other way round. Yes, balanced on all these players sounds cleaner with better separation and maybe better resolution. But I strongly advise people that look for musicality mainly to try 3.5. Adaptors are cheap (bought mine ages ago from FiiO for the Dragonfly). Owning lots of 4.4 cables I am not really happy to have found this out so late. But better late then never. I will only use 3.5 from now on.

Since the guy who asked me (not sure he wants to be named) owns a SP2K CU, I thought we might have a general topic. But when as the last of my DAPs I made the same experiment with my Shanling M8 to my big surprise I found 4.4 balanced better. Also on the musical level. So you have to trust your own ears, when you are open to make this experiment on whatever other player you have.

It’s sort of like low gain vs high gain. Low is more musical and balanced. High is generally more dynamic. On wm1z, the single ended and balanced run on completely different set of circuits so they will need to get burned in separately. Balanced has twice as many coil inductors on the wm1z, so it’ll be a different sound.

 

[Frombauge]

Balanced 4.4 vs. unbalanced 3.5 (again?) - all technicality fans can stop reading here

Nice, but a bit old fashioned player, you might think. But why the hell is he using a mediocre adaptor to 3.5 for his nice Indigo when he has the option to use balanced 4.4 directly?

Well, what follows now is for the people who look for musicality (term described often enough) in the music reproduction of DAPs.
A fellow HeadFi (@shizzin ) guy texted me the other day, if I also find 3.5 more musical then 4.4. I turned to only use balanced 2.5/4.4 goes back to the times of my FiiO X5 (i) years ago. On that player, I compared it a bit and decided, that balanced is clearly better. And I never went back. Not even for a minute with any player that came later. What a stupid mistake ...
As you can see in my signature, I have some respected DAPs lying around. Over the last few days I compared on all of them 3.5 unbalanced against 4.4. I didn't want to rush to publish the results here, because I am sure some people will just declare me nuts. But here I go. It might help some people and helping is the mission, when you publish something ...
On my three best players being Shanling M9, P6 Pro and WM1Z to my reception, 3.5 unbalanced is clearly more musical than balanced 4.4. Not a bit but a lot. It basicaly takes me seconds with emotional music to hear it. A tiny melodic piece from a piano or guitar and it is clear.
For everybody, who it is into the technicalities (resolution, stage etc.) the story might still be the other way round. Yes, balanced on all these players sounds cleaner with better separation and maybe better resolution. But I strongly advise people that look for musicality mainly to try 3.5. Adaptors are cheap (bought mine ages ago from FiiO for the Dragonfly). Owning lots of 4.4 cables I am not really happy to have found this out so late. But better late then never. I will only use 3.5 from now on.

Since @shizzin owns an AK DAP (SP2K CU), I thought we might have a general topic. But when as the last of my DAPs I made the same experiment with my Shanling M8 to my big surprise I found 4.4 balanced better. Also on the musical level. So you have to trust your own ears, when you are open to make this experiment on whatever other player you have.

As all things in life, it is not black or white. Many parameters are in play eg. output impedance of source, impedance of IEM, sensitivity of IEM, voltage vs. current driving ability of source, voltage vs. current demand of headphone/IEM, susceptibility to noise, THD vs. gain of source etc. As all sources and output stages are different even balanced and unbalanced in the same device, it is a synergy issue to a great extent. Personally I prefer 4.4 mm balanced with my gear, partly for connector affinity and partly for perceived SQ.

 

[Scubadevils]

Saturday morning listening session with my 1A and Z1R... there sure is wonderful synergy - M9 drives more oomph to the low end in particular, and an obvious larger stage, two immediate factors that jump out. But, there is a beautiful musical synergy here that quickly allows me to just immerse myself in the music and forget any 'improvements' the M9 might deliver.

A fantastic way to start my Saturday morning. Enjoy your weekend folks!

 

[JSBachFan]

It’s sort of like low gain vs high gain. Low is more musical and balanced. High is generally more dynamic. On wm1z, the single ended and balanced run on completely different set of circuits so they will need to get burned in separately. Balanced has twice as many coil inductors on the wm1z, so it’ll be a different sound.

As all things in life, it is not black or white. Many parameters are in play eg. output impedance of source, impedance of IEM, sensitivity of IEM, voltage vs. current driving ability of source, voltage vs. current demand of headphone/IEM, susceptibility to noise, THD vs. gain of source etc. As all sources and output stages are different even balanced and unbalanced in the same device, it is a synergy issue to a great extent. Personally I prefer 4.4 mm balanced with my gear, partly for connector affinity and partly for perceived SQ.

Thank you for your input and polite reply! Since all my DAPs were used, I cannot really comment on how much single ended and balanced have been used. But I myself only used balanced until a few days ago. So from my usage, balanced should have enough burn in time. And I did use different songs and IEMs for the comparison. The effect was consistent.
We'll see. For the moment I am so happy with the effect, that I started to browse through my whole collection and find everything better than ever.

 

[Scubadevils]

Tip rolling Traillii on a lazy Saturday... I was curious to try stock and a few others again - landed back on Tanchjim T300 (treble enhancing), they really are absolutely perfect with the bird - fit, comfort, sound. While I've a few sets already, I keep an unopened pack in reserve!

 

[Deezel177]

Wow, as usual... 'miss one Watercooler alert on your notifications, and you're now about 50 pages behind. Anyway, 'glad to finally reenter the conversation, wherever it's ended up. Gleaming the past few pages, I've seen the words IPX and Sharona pop up, which conveniently leads me to the last review offer I accepted before I announced my retirement...

Impressions and pics, coming tomorrow.

 

[GiullianSN]

Wow, as usual... 'miss one Watercooler alert on your notifications, and you're now about 50 pages behind. Anyway, 'glad to finally reenter the conversation, wherever it's ended up. Gleaming the past few pages, I've seen the words IPX and Sharona pop up, which conveniently leads me to the last review offer I accepted before I announced my retirement...

​

Impressions and pics, coming tomorrow.

One word…

 

[Scubadevils]

Now playing...

I love having albums that I associate with various seasons and this is a wonderful example of one I play on a regular basis during the summer - fantastic melodic downtempo with a real feelgood vibe.

 

[Andricop]

I think these will suit quite a few of my genre preferences - descriptions of 'boring' connect with me - fond memories of IER-M9 which was often described that way too but fantastic for a lot of my more chilled choices.

I had the IER-M9 and the TZ700 is definitely less boring

 

[G777]

Now playing...

I love having albums that I associate with various seasons and this is a wonderful example of one I play on a regular basis during the summer - fantastic melodic downtempo with a real feelgood vibe.

Love the album cover

 

[Scubadevils]

Some soul searching today on my collection has led to an unexpected move... I'm listing X on classifieds! It's fantastic but I'm struggling to justify Traillii and X in my collection, I'd like to start moving stuff on again to try others and having spent time with both today, Traillii still my top choice - Z1R does a lot of what I need in terms of music I play on X. I'll be listing some others too.

Let me know of anyone here is interested!

 

[JSBachFan]

Saturday morning listening session with my 1A and Z1R

Love the cover of your 1A. Which one is it?

 

[Rockwell75]

Some soul searching today on my collection has led to an unexpected move... I'm listing X on classifieds! It's fantastic but I'm struggling to justify Traillii and X in my collection, I'd like to start moving stuff on again to try others and having spent time with both today, Traillii still my top choice - Z1R does a lot of what I need in terms of music I play on X. I'll be listing some others too.

Let me know of anyone here is interested!

X is great and I see why people who love the likes of the IE900 and IER Z1R are very fond of it...but I could see how it would be a little redundant alongside those two.

 

[Scubadevils]

Love the cover of your 1A. Which one is it?

Yes beautiful case - it's a Dignis.