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Xor or single ended?

Hi Goners!

I am sure this has been gone over but i seemed to have missed finding it...
What is preferred...A single ended tonearm cable to an orca phono input or a xor balanced termination tonearm to a balanced xor phono input?

Please, if you answer i would appreciate having solid reasoning as opposed to one"s own preferences...

I very much thank all for helping me understand.

Azjake

azjake
cleeds
6,093 posts
 
lewm4,763 posts02-02-2016 3:08pm"cleeds is basically correct but not entirely correct.  The coil in the cartridge has two free ends; I think we can easily agree on that.  When you use the cartridge in single-ended mode, one end is connected to the hot pin or the hot female input of the RCA connection, and the other is connected to audio ground via the collar of the male RCA jack or the sleeve on an RCA input jack.  However, when you hook up a cartridge in balanced mode, there is no audio ground connection; each end of the cartridge is attached to one of 3 pins in the XLR, typically pins 2 and 3."

I think you misread what I wrote. Please note - as I tried to make clear -  that you can connect a phono cartridge in balanced mode using RCA connectors and a separate ground wire; that keeps the shield separate from the audio ground. There's nothing magic or inherently balanced about XLR connectors themselves, even though they are almost always used in balanced mode.
azjake's avatar
azjake OP
285 posts
 
Thanks to all that responded!
 My preamp is fully balanced but the tone arms were mistakenly made with s. E. Terminations!
my question was centered around whether I should have the terminations changed or just use adapters... I think the former seems to be the unanimous choice...:-)
cleeds
6,093 posts
 
azjake OP243 posts" My preamp is fully balanced but the tone arms were mistakenly made with s. E. Terminations!"

Does the pickup arm have a separate ground wire, as is common? If so, you can use a multimeter to check if there is continuity between the ground wire and audio ground, which is probably the outer parts of the RCA connectors. If there's no continuity, your RCA cables are not really single-ended.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,516 posts
 
I use balanced ( XLR) connection from my phono into the preamp, and then into the amp.  The result is abslutely dead quiet with fully realized performance.  I also have balanced headphones and separate balanced headphone amp which can be used easily with regular plugs, and there is an increase in performance using them balanced.
pbnaudio's avatar
pbnaudio
1,615 posts
 
Its generally not recommendable to hook up a fully balanced phono system with  RCA connectors because the negative node is thereby fully exposed on the barrel of the RCA connector i.e. not shielded,  this can have severely negative effects.  Most common hook up scheme is pin2 positive pin 3 negative and pin 1 chassis ground - signal ground should not be connected to pin 1.

We make mostly fully balanced phono stages with only XLR connectors on them. Even our little gem the Liberty B2B-1 is supplied with XLR connectors if one should wish to run a fully balanced phono system, obviously needing two of them in this configuration.


Good Listening

Peter
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