[Baldr]

   
I've always understoond carts to be inherently balanced. Each winding is floating with respect to ground, and this is continued through the arm wiring until you reach the sockets for the interconnect. Some cartridges do have a ground strap from the body to one of the pins on the back of the cartridge, but this can easily be removed. The main issue is having to replace the phono sockets with XLRs.

 
All true, or mostly true in a universe where (i.e. DIY) the following conditions prevail:
 
All shielding grounds, cartridge body shielding grounds, and turntable system grounds are isolated from or disconnected from right and left cart output grounds.  Disconnecting too many grounds can make phono systems hum.
No common ground wiring exists between channels, such as Deccas, some Grados, and many other variable relectance types.
Since cartridge windings are not intended to be hooked up balanced, there is no true center tap where the impedance is quartered.  Therefore, a less optimal phantom ground would have to be derived with resistors.
 
Such an application could be properly implemented with a transformer, but as far as I know, none exist.  The difficulty would be to make such a device universal.
 
It is possible to half-ass/float it with cables; I am just not about half-ass.
 
Until cartridges have balanced, center-tapped, output coils, count me balancing at the first circuit stage where I can tolerate 6db more noise.

 

[bigro]

  I just got back from a cruise, managed to cause no international incidents, and had a wonderful time not thinking about anything audio.  So back to audio and the topic of preamps.  As the fan I am of big bottled, 6SL and 6SN7 tubes, they are not as good as miniature tubes, particularly the 6DJ8/6922 family, and the 5670/2C51/396A families for low-level signals because they are slightly noisier.  Now I am not a huge fan of MC carts except for Denon 103C and R versions.  The rest are usually brighter than Schiit LEDs.  We're talkin' get your teeth cleaned standing in front of a speaker playing them.
So I built a proto - it ended up with too much gain, (good for the Denon 103R but bad for most of the ROW(rest of the world)) but the real problem was with how much 6DJ8 family tubes messed with the cost.  Next proto will have 5670 family stuff and lower gain. 
Here's the rub:  Can't do a "fully balanced" design on a inherent single ended source (carts) product.  Another problem is that balanced stages (fully balanced) have generally double the noise of a non differential (single ended) gain stage.  Not much of a problem at headphone amp levels, but much more so at phono levels. 
The logical spot to do it is at the input to the amplifier following it (i.e. Jotunheim and Freya)  It could be done at the output of the phono pre, but it would add significant cost.  Ugh!
Anyway, I'm back and ready to do some more proto building just as soon as I finish a dreaded BOM for a summer product.  (I still hate paperwork.)

I knew The DAC Module on the Jotunheim was Balanced, I did not realize the phono Stage was balanced. With all the people dreaming that Schiit could fit an MB DAC in the Chassis of the Jotunheim or complaining that you did not fit one in, unfortunately it seems some of the very interesting features have been lost.  I did a quick  look at Some of the Popular Turntable Manufacturers and did not see any balanced outputs even on flagship TT's. I Generally Play in the High Value per Dollar arena so I never paid attention to those. If they are out there it seems like they are rare. This is Just a Thought but If the size, form factor and all of the other things you must consider allow, would it be feasible to make this experimental Phono stage with SE outputs as standard and possibly an add on Phono Balanced Output Module In a Similar Fashion as Jotunheim Modules? 
 
Your Preference of MM Carts is Interesting as the rest of the world touts MC as the way to go.  What are your preferences for MM Carts?

 

[watchnerd]

  I knew The DAC Module on the Jotunheim was Balanced, I did not realize the phono Stage was balanced. 
 

 
Who said the phono stage in the Jot was balanced?

 

[bigro]

Look at the Label in the Top Left.. Balanced out, not in.
 

 

 

[bigro]

   
Who said the phono stage in the Jot was balanced?

 
Although the Description on Schiits website says
"This balanced DAC adds a MM phono input to your phono-less Jotunheim. It uses a passive RIAA network and high-quality, ultra-low-noise gain stages for excellent performance. "
 
I am Guessing DAC should be Replaced with Module or something of the sort.
 
 
Maybe Mike Can Clarify. But it is kind of my point. if it is in fact a Balanced output Phono Stage, who knew? And Beyond that a pretty kick ass option if you ask me that seemed to get lost in the noise.

 

[watchnerd]

   
Although the Description on Schiits website says
"This balanced DAC adds a MM phono input to your phono-less Jotunheim. It uses a passive RIAA network and high-quality, ultra-low-noise gain stages for excellent performance. "
 
I am Guessing DAC should be Replaced with Module or something of the sort.
 
 
Maybe Mike Can Clarify. But it is kind of my point. if it is in fact a Balanced output Phono Stage, who knew? And Beyond that a pretty kick ass option if you ask me that seemed to get lost in the noise.

 
Oh, you mean the phono stage output gets converted from SE -> balanced.
 
I wouldn't call that a fully balanced phono stage, which to me implies balanced (XLR) inputs.

 

[bigro]

   
Oh, you mean the phono stage output gets converted from SE -> balanced.
 
I wouldn't call that a fully balanced phono stage, which to me implies balanced (XLR) inputs.

 
Right. Balanced Out. If Cartridges is as Mike stated Inherently SE, unless there is some electronics built into the TT what other ways can you make an SE source (like a Cartridge)  truly Balanced?  Based on Mike's Last post it seems some of the methods mentioned outside of the phono stage taking the SE input and outputting balanced seem to be a sub par /Half assed solution from an Engineers Standpoint.  I am not Arguing one way or the other. All of the TT's I have used admittedly are on the low to mid end of the spectrum and have been all SE. If you do know of companies that make balanced Turntables can you post them? I would like to do some research.

 

[watchnerd]

   
 If Cartridges is as Mike stated Inherently SE
 

 
If you look elsewhere, many vinyl forums are of the opposite opinion: that cartridges are inherently balanced.

 

[watchnerd]

   
If you do know of companies that make balanced Turntables can you post them?

 
Pro-Ject offers balanced XLR cabling on their mid- to upper-end models, as well as XLR input phono stages.

 

[oryan_dunn]

So, how does the Jot Phono amp compare to the Mani?  Is it a similar design?

 

[sam6550a]

   
Right. Balanced Out. If Cartridges is as Mike stated Inherently SE, unless there is some electronics built into the TT what other ways can you make an SE source (like a Cartridge)  truly Balanced?  Based on Mike's Last post it seems some of the methods mentioned outside of the phono stage taking the SE input and outputting balanced seem to be a sub par /Half assed solution from an Engineers Standpoint.  I am not Arguing one way or the other. All of the TT's I have used admittedly are on the low to mid end of the spectrum and have been all SE. If you do know of companies that make balanced Turntables can you post them? I would like to do some research.

The missing ingredient, which was identified by Baldr, is that the phono cartridge coils do NOT provide a center tap to ground, which a truly balanced configuration demands. That is why he eschews work around configurations.

 

[bigro]

 
The missing ingredient, which was identified by Baldr, is that the phono cartridge coils do NOT provide a center tap to ground, which a truly balanced configuration demands. That is why he eschews work around configurations.

Understood. I was looking into the Pro-jects and it seems they have a 5 Pin Din Connector on their higher end models which can have a Balanced Cable or SE cable attached to it. I may be Missing something and I am not trying to be argumentative here but is that not similar to getting RCA to XLR cables and hooking it up to My Modi 2 Uber?  Still Inherently SE but with XLR's on the other end.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

What would happen if you plugged Mani into Vidar?

 

[RCBinTN]

 

 
OMGoodness...is that in your home?  What an awesome display!!
 
I think it's interesting that many posters on this thread try to help Mike design his next products.  Mike - are you guys over at Schiit Audio hiring at the moment?  LOL.
 
Cheers,
RCB

 

[jimmers]

  What would happen if you plugged Mani into Vidar?

If you had turntable and speakers connected and all was powered up and you tried playing a record ... most likely would smoke your speakers. You need to have a preamp/attenuator between Mani and Vidar.