Thank you Charles. While not opposing any topology I think less is more. As electrical noise is concerned, home environment is in most cases benign. I argue to learn/understand and I have, especially from Al and Ralph. This forum is great.
Why Single-Ended?
I’ve long wondered why some manufacturers design their components to be SE only. I work in the industry and know that "balanced" audio lines have been the pro standard (for grounding and noise reduction reasons) and home stereo units started out as single-ended designs.
One reason components are not balanced is due to cost, and it’s good to be able to get high quality sound at an affordable price.
But, with so many balanced HiFi components available these days, why have some companies not offered a fully-balanced amp or preamp in their product line?
I’m referring to fine companies such as Conrad Johnson, Consonance, Coincident, and Bob Carver’s tube amps. CJ builds amps that sell for $20-$39K, so their design is not driven by cost.
The reason I’m asking is because in a system you might have a couple of balanced sources, balanced preamp, and then the final stage might be a tube amp or monoblocks which have SE input. How much of the total signal is lost in this type of setup? IOW, are we missing out on sonic bliss by mixing balanced and unbalanced?
One reason components are not balanced is due to cost, and it’s good to be able to get high quality sound at an affordable price.
But, with so many balanced HiFi components available these days, why have some companies not offered a fully-balanced amp or preamp in their product line?
I’m referring to fine companies such as Conrad Johnson, Consonance, Coincident, and Bob Carver’s tube amps. CJ builds amps that sell for $20-$39K, so their design is not driven by cost.
The reason I’m asking is because in a system you might have a couple of balanced sources, balanced preamp, and then the final stage might be a tube amp or monoblocks which have SE input. How much of the total signal is lost in this type of setup? IOW, are we missing out on sonic bliss by mixing balanced and unbalanced?
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- 101 posts total
dbphd: "The manual for the Ayre phono stage (I use a JC 3) includes diagrams that seem to suggest converting an RCA plug from a turntable to a balanced input, but I may be misreading that." Ayre products are zero-feedback, fully-balanced designs. Ayre provides only XLR connection for the phono input on my phono-stage equipped K-1xe and recommends using balanced-configured cables terminated with XLR connectors into the phono stage, thus they provide a diagram on their website to show how to construct a balanced-configuration XLR-terminated phono cable (pin 2 hot), "This is the preferred solution and offers the highest level of sound quality." The manual shows the option of using RCA to XLR adapters if the user is determined to use a RCA cable: "...this converts the balanced input into an unbalanced input and causes a slight loss of sound quality." The stand-alone P-5xe phono stage allows for XLR and RCA connection, but Ayre still recommends the using the balanced XLR inputs and outputs for "the highest level of sound quality." Dave |
a very tired topic which has been debated ad nauseam. Ralph always beats the balanced drum as that is what he sells. Others beat the SE drum because that is what they sell, Look through the old posts and find as many of these just like this one as you want. BTW despite what Ralph contends phono cartridges are NOT balanced as there is no ground, no ground pin connection, only 2 lines out. All sound sources are single ended, compressions and refractions. When you get to the speaker they are all single ended, they move in and out, no balance. There are also a lot of misconception about balanced and differential, two related but different things. Ayre is misleading you with "zero feedback." It is no global feedback, but all solid state designs must provide some local feedback or they will be unstable. Bottom line, I've heard many, many, many systems and the best to me have always been highly efficient speakers driven by a minimum number of SE stages. From DAC output to speaker I have 2 tubes both SE because I only need a few watts of power .... bliss.... It is indisputable that SE tubes operated properly are the lowest distortion (most linear) stages If you choose equipment based on topology versus how it sounds you will lose. It is the sound, not the implementation. Hey Ralph, I've been gone for a few years, interesting to see the same things debated over and over and over |
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/balanced-is-inherently-flawed here's a post I started 12 years ago on the same topic. I admit I did it just to start a debate, but shows how this has been ongoing since the beginning of audio and will never be resolved |
- 101 posts total