Balanced in phono stages preamp?

Atmasphere - I never understood why it is said that phono cartridges are balanced, given that they are a two wire device. For the particular connection between two wire cart and pre amp ,i.e. signal still single ended until split into balanced at the pre, there shouldn't be any advantage in common mode rejection. Once the split is made (downstream of the input connection at the pre amp) I understand your point.
N803nut - If I understand the circuit you have described correctly, it is electrically the same as an unbalanced connection except that you are using two wires in parellel on the grounded side of the unbalanced connection.

Jeff_jones, you are correct. The signal encoded on the vinyl disc is also single ended.

Balanced is hype. Long (and I mean really long) signal runs can benefit from balanced but not typical home setups.

ALL sources are single ended.

All speakers are single ended.

Your ears are single ended.

All sound is single ended. There are no balanced instruments or sounds.

Herman, I think I agree with you :^).

I have some balanced stuff and run it with balanced cable because I think it's a little bit better that way.

But who knows, perhaps if it had been designed from day one as single ended it would sound better than it does now in balanced.

Interesting comments for sure.

A balanced electrical interface is almost immune to spurious signal pickup: eg: hum. When using single ended interconnects I have never had a problem with noise pickup, but I have had a phono cartridge circuit pretend it's a radio. Balanced configuration makes more sense for a high gain phono input than for any other part of the system.

Actually, I do use some balanced wires, but this is because the equipment is pro sound stuff, and that's the way it is made. I have used some of this equipment single ended, and it worked fine that way also.

>>And since phono cartridges are balanced<<

This is simply not true. I'm suprised you would continue to actively propogate this myth. If anyone understands the beauty of balanced circuits and signalling, it's you. You get it.

So why pretend a two-wire device is balanced? It's not. A cartridge is floating single-ended. Balanced operation require three terminals: a common (mid-point, average, reference), a positive polarity, and a negative polarity. You don't have that with a cartridge.

Nonetheless, as I pointed out in another thread, a proper receiver can force a cartridge into balanced mode. This is done by using a center tap on the primary of a step-up transformer. The center tap connects to ground. The windings then force the cartridge to act as if it were balanced (but without the 6dB gain). I wonder how many of these so-called balanced phonostages actually do this. And how many simply connect one cartridge tap to ground and pretend?

jh