Why Single-Ended?

why do reviewers not "call out" the equipment manufacturers, with "fake" balanced connections?

That’s true.  We know from the review that the unit is not a balanced design. They could say "this amp has RCA and XLR inputs."

BD,

Probably not, would there be a way to use the KUBE between your source and the Preamp?  of course with several sources this is a problematic solution. Alternatively could you get a second KUBE ?  would require some fancy wiring but the signal would then be balanced, however probably more effort required than it is worth.


Good Listening

Peter

Also why do reviewers not "call out" the equipment manufacturers, with "fake" balanced connections?

Many amps, preamps, and sources have fake balanced inputs and outputs In that they just put in an extra opamp in the signal path to create a balanced input or output.
Where their single ended input/output is better as that opamp is then not in the signal path.

Cheers George

DBPHD, for the benefit of others who may respond I’ll mention that the manual for the JC2 BP states that it "uses a fully differential balanced circuit and its balanced outputs do not require or use phase inverters." Also, while as far as I can tell from its literature the JC1 does not appear to be fully balanced, it is described as using a differential input stage. And the manuals for both components recommend balanced connections where possible.

So what you might consider doing, at a cost of a bit under $600 plus some additional cabling, would be inserting Jensen transformers between those components and the inputs and outputs of the KUBE. Or, at a cost of around $300 plus some additional cabling, only between the KUBE and the power amps.

Those would convert the unbalanced signals to or from a true balanced pair of signals. They would provide essentially the same noise reduction benefit and reduced susceptibility to ground loop effects that a well designed balanced interface between components would provide. In this particular case, however, I doubt that it’s possible to predict whether the net result would be an improvement, or little or no difference, or perhaps even a slight loss of transparency. Reports here by users of Jensen transformers have generally been very positive, although a few, including Ralph, have provided comments that are a bit mixed.

Suitable models would be the PI2-XR at the input side of the KUBE, and a pair of model PI-RX located near the inputs of each of the amps. Here is a good supplier, although they can also be ordered directly from Jensen, at a slightly higher price in some cases.

Regards,
-- Al

The Tim Paravicini-designed EAR-Yoshino tube circuits are all single ended, the pre-amps and power amps having transformers on the XLR/balanced inputs and outputs.