[Sorensiim]

-I have the same fear with the CEntrance M-8. It will be powerful enough to handle high-end full headphones such as Audeze and the Sennheiser 800. I hope the balance is good at low gain and low levels.
w
-XLR cables are balanced because they are grounded on both ends of the connection, right? It has X/LR at both termini for a total of three wires for each mono signal: Positive, Negative, Ground. With the Westone connector, there are only two connections. What difference does 4 wires make if they merge into 2 termini?

For single ended operation, you need signal (+) and ground. Both left and right share ground. For balanced operation, you need Signal + and Signal -, 4 wires. No ground. Look at the 4-pin connector on the Alo RX Mk IIIb and the SR71b.

Well news on the street is they backed off on the extra gain a bit for sensitive IEM's. That's why I was asking to find out if anyone can confirm this.

The one I tried was the new lower gain version and I found it to be more or less useless with IEMS. It sure is spectacular with the Hd800 and HE500 though!

 

[GarySaville]

Quote:

 Does the Magnus 1 not share a common ground between the left and right units?
 
Also, this will allow me to use the 4 pin XLR connector on the amp.

You could have a 50 pin connector on one side, but if it terminates in Positive/Negative at the other end, it's not balanced.

 

[Sorensiim]

You could have a 50 pin connector on one side, but if it terminates in Positive/Negative at the other end, it's not balanced.

Show me a balanced cable with more than 4 connections at the headphone end.

 

[GarySaville]

Quote:

Show me a balanced cable with more than 4 connections at the headphone end.

Hmm. New to me. But, Moon audio seems to agree with you:
[size=small]Balanced headphones are just regular headphones that have been re-cabled in a special way. The normal three-conductor cable with the common ground connection is replaced with a cable that has four conductors: right positive and right negative conductors to the positive and negative connections of the right driver coil; and left positive and left negative conductors to the left driver coil. The cable is terminated in two XLR male connectors, one each for the left and right channel. A special headphone amplifier is used that has "balanced" outputs where each channel has a normal audio drive signal and a mirror image inverted drive signal. The trick here is that there is no "ground" to the headphones anymore, so there is no opportunity for the crosstalk distortion described above.[/size]

 

[TheRealCJ]

Whee! Just got my shipment confirmation from Sunny!
 
Now we play the waiting game...

 

[ardgedee]

Quote:

You could have a 50 pin connector on one side, but if it terminates in Positive/Negative at the other end, it's not balanced.

 
Headphones are usually wired with a common ground:
Left +
Right +
Left/Right ground
 
"Balanced" is the term used when headphones are wired to an amplifier in the way speakers are:
 
Left +
Left - (or ground)
Right +
Right - (or ground)
 
It has nothing to do with whether the amplifier is operating in phase balanced configuration. Channel grounding is irrelevant to the discussion.
 
You have to use a "balanced" headphone connection with certain amplifier configurations, even when the amplifier is not balanced: For example, T amps are not balanced, but most will short if the channels bridge, so you have to connect headphones to them in a "balanced" way. What confuses things further is that "active ground" amplifier configurations (like the PiMeta or the three-board b22) have what you could think of as a common - between the channels -- it's more like a balanced amp than many "balanced" amps, but you use a standard TRS connector.
 
So to wrap up: "Balanced" is a misnomer. It's also what people have generally come to call a headphone with a four-element connection rather than a three-element connection. I don't like it either, but we live with it.

 

[FullCircle]

Quote:

 
Anyone know if the plugs on the 4A are standardized Westone plugs? I'm hoping they're not proprietary. That would mess things up in the cable upgrade dept.
 
 

---

 

 
     They are standardized, and the magnus one has two seperate ground leads. So you have a 4 strand mid section, the 2 strand (positve and negative) going up to each ear piece.
 
     This configuration will allow a person to use a use a 4 prong XLR if one wanted and yes we do have have the parts in stock to build the Magnus 1 in such a manner.
 
    
 
    Wizard

 

[ocelot2500]

Quote:

No good news here. My impressions seem to be incomplete, so it's back to start for me after 6 weeks.

I feel your pain as I have sent in 3 sets of impressions since the week after Thanksgiving.  It has been a bit maddening.
 
On a side note, with all this amp talk, what is everyone using with the 4.A?  I remember the UHA-6 was popular and the Rendition 1 is starting to make its way out, but are there any other amps I might want to look into?

 

[anoxy]

No good news here. My impressions seem to be incomplete, so it's back to start for me after 6 weeks.

6 weeks to find out your impressions are inadequate? That's pretty ridiculous.

 

[FullCircle]

Quote:

6 weeks to find out your impressions are inadequate? That's pretty ridiculous.

 
     I rather doubt that is the case considering build times are 3-5 weeks.
 
     Like most things, I am sure there is more to this than face value.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

I feel your pain as I have sent in 3 sets of impressions since the week after Thanksgiving.  It has been a bit maddening.
 
On a side note, with all this amp talk, what is everyone using with the 4.A?  I remember the UHA-6 was popular and the Rendition 1 is starting to make its way out, but are there any other amps I might want to look into?

Well with me it's going to be the UHA-6S MK II with op amp 209 the UHA-4 with op amp 8610 and the ALO RX MKII. Now that the MKIII B has been stricken off the list as non IEM friendly my attention has wondered over to the Continental Ver 2 as well as the Ray Samuels offerings. I'm not sure if I would want to go the tube route though. In my book the Continental isn't so much a mobile amp as it is a transportable amp due to heat issues. I dunno, the Continental paired with the new CLAS -db might make for a nice small form factor solution for my home laptop. I'm planning on looking more into headphones this year so maybe it might be a good option. Currently my main amp is the UHA-6S MKII. I so wish Nick Leckerton would one day make a no holds barred amp/DAC that was both PC and idevice compliant. I can't help but wonder what Nick could do if he went after the Portaphile and Triad Audio crowd.

 

[GarySaville]

Quote:

Well with me it's going to be the UHA-6S MK II with op amp 209 the UHA-4 with op amp 8610 and the ALO RX MKII. Now that the MKIII B has been stricken off the list as non IEM friendly my attention has wondered over to the Continental Ver 2 as well as the Ray Samuels offerings. I'm not sure if I would want to go the tube route though. In my book the Continental isn't so much a mobile amp as it is a transportable amp due to heat issues. I dunno, the Continental paired with the new CLAS -db might make for a nice small form factor solution for my home laptop. I'm planning on looking more into headphones this year so maybe it might be a good option. Currently my main amp is the UHA-6S MKII. I so wish Nick Leckerton would one day make a no holds barred amp/DAC that was both PC and idevice compliant. I can't help but wonder what Nick could do if he went after the Portaphile and Triad Audio crowd.

The MKIII B is fairly popular with the JH-Audio users, and the impedance of the 16s is similar to the 8.As. Perhaps Sorenslim tried out a bad unit. I've never heard the MKIII, so I can't speak to it directly. I have the ALO Pan Am tube amp which I assume would be similar, perhaps better than the Continental, but with stock tubes/Telefunken 6AK5 the unit lacks bass depth and punch with all of my IEMs. I've ordered Mullard CV4010s for it which according to one review give much more bass depth and punch. I'll post more when they arrive.
I'll also review how the CEntrance M-8 pairs with the 8.A IEMs as soon as they both arrive. The M-8 appears to be close to completion.

 

[Sorensiim]

Quote:

The MKIII B is fairly popular with the JH-Audio users, and the impedance of the 16s is similar to the 8.As. Perhaps Sorenslim tried out a bad unit. I've never heard the MKIII, so I can't speak to it directly. I have the ALO Pan Am tube amp which I assume would be similar, perhaps better than the Continental, but with stock tubes/Telefunken 6AK5 the unit lacks bass depth and punch with all of my IEMs. I've ordered Mullard CV4010s for it which according to one review give much more bass depth and punch. I'll post more when they arrive.
I'll also review how the CEntrance M-8 pairs with the 8.A IEMs as soon as they both arrive. The M-8 appears to be close to completion.

The sound from the MkIIIb I tried was good, but the hiss was distracting during quite passages - which weren't so quiet as the output level was so damn high (even on low gain) that to get past the volume impalance I was actually slightly over my normal listening levels. I really like the sound of the Rendition 1, but my DX100 does very, very well on its own. Gotta try out the SR71B one day... Should be fun with the 8.A and Tzar 350!

 

[GarySaville]

Quote:

The sound from the MkIIIb I tried was good, but the hiss was distracting during quite passages - which weren't so quiet as the output level was so damn high (even on low gain) that to get past the volume impalance I was actually slightly over my normal listening levels. I really like the sound of the Rendition 1, but my DX100 does very, very well on its own. Gotta try out the SR71B one day... Should be fun with the 8.A and Tzar 350!

The MKIIIB was connected to the DX100 line out? The ALO Pan has imbalance issues from 1-4% volume with my Westone IEMs. Comfortable listening levels are between 1-10% on low gain, so it too is not ideal for IEMs; however the 8.A are slightly higher impedance so they may work better.  The background is extremely black on the Pan Am, and I get no hiss at all. The ALO MKIII and the Pan Am are very different amps though.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

The MKIII B is fairly popular with the JH-Audio users, and the impedance of the 16s is similar to the 8.As. Perhaps Sorenslim tried out a bad unit. I've never heard the MKIII, so I can't speak to it directly. I have the ALO Pan Am tube amp which I assume would be similar, perhaps better than the Continental, but with stock tubes/Telefunken 6AK5 the unit lacks bass depth and punch with all of my IEMs. I've ordered Mullard CV4010s for it which according to one review give much more bass depth and punch. I'll post more when they arrive.
I'll also review how the CEntrance M-8 pairs with the 8.A IEMs as soon as they both arrive. The M-8 appears to be close to completion.

If you don't have the Passport you might want to get yourself one. According to Mike of Headphonia the Pan Am sounds it's best when powered by the Passport.