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Is it the tube pre or the rca/xlr adapter?

HELP! I've recently added a vk-50se, only my second tube component I have ever owned, and a Classe CA301 to my system. Speakers are Aerial 10T's. I am feeding the signal from my 834P with XLO single ended cables plugging into rca/xlr adapters at the pre. It seems that I have lost some details in the music that were there with my old Rotel pre with the same phono setup. BTW, I really like what the bat did for the sound of CDs, but I would prefer to improve the sound from my LPs.

I have tried moving the pre-amp to its own spiked amp stand and it did not make much difference.

I am guessing there is about 100 hrs. on the bat based on what the previous owner told me and the hours I have put on it. The 301 has about 70 hrs on it.

Do you guys with more experience think that it could be the rca/xlr adapters holding the signal back or do things need to burn in some more or do I need to play with placement, etc?

TIA,

Dan
dan_ed
mgottlieb
334 posts
 
This comment is limited to the adaptor question. I have a Lamm LP2 phono amp, single ended outputs only, and a Rowland Synergy IIi preamp, balanced inputs and outputs only. I directly compared two pairs of Purist Dominus cables between them, RCA cable terminations with both BAT and Rowland RCA/XLR converters at the preamp inputs, and XLR cables with an RCA/XLR Cardas adaptor at the output to the phono amp. The latter was noticeably clearer. Cardas connectors better? Balanced cables better? Adaptor doing less harm at the phono amp output than at the preamp input? Got me, but these are the facts, man.
twl
3,251 posts
 
Why are you using the balanced adapters? If you are going into the BAT with single ended, there is no need to use balanced outs from the EAR. That is simply running through a line balancing transformer and adapters for no good reason. Just run single ended on both ends. There is no inherent advantage to running balanced cables, unless the equipment is designed with balanced internal circuitry, and even then you have to have both units being balanced and the correct cables with balanced connections on both ends. I'd run normal single ended RCA plugs on both ends.
dan_ed OP
2,451 posts
 
Tom,

The BAT, more specifically the vk50se, does not have any single ended inputs or outputs, so I am now using the adapters at the BAT input to change from the RCA-ended cables from the 834P to the balanced inputs on the BAT. Sorry if I didn't explain things clearly.

834P -> XLO single ended -> rca2xlr adapter -> BAT input

But your point about the balanced components is well taken. Assuming that I will keep the BAT pre-amp for quite a while I should plan on finding another phono stage that is balanced. I orginally planned to upgrade the TT and use the 834P. I may have to rethink the ordering of my upgrades.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Transfering from unbalanced to balanced often reduces nearly the normal input impedance of the next component hence the cut-off of the high freequencies may take place especially having in mind already high output impedance of EAR phonostage.
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