Signal Degradation Balanced Output

Yes, I've tried balanced, unbalanced, Y-splitters with cables and one piece metal RCA Y-splitters, even made ulp some splitters with Neotech 1002 cable and pure copper contacts... same problem.  I eventually decided to try the ISOMAX, thinking the problem was in the impedance matching of the preamp and amplifier... dame problem.

This is not a new problem, but one that has persisted over many different system components, cabling and configurations over the years.  I've spent hours, days, even months dialing in my system.  The speaker imaging of Wilson Audio and Focal is superb when setup right.  Mine is.  The sound is detached from the speakers and the soundstage is well behind and center of the speakers and sound fabulous.  except that it lacks the lower fundamentals.  Connecting a sub diminishes the reverb and  transparency. I can hear minut differences.

Righy now, I think my only solution is to move to a full range floor stander, thereby eliminating the sub. I read some older threads that mentioned Linn was doing something with daisy chaining amps or something.  The problem is real.  I challenge some of you to seriously a/b test your dialed in systems, I'd bet you'd hear a difference or maybe I just have golden ears. lol

athy062

I’ve tried balanced, unbalanced, Y-splitters with cables and one piece metal RCA Y-splitters, even made ulp some splitters with Neotech 1002 cable and pure copper contacts... same problem.

Understood. Did you calculate the effective combined input impedance of the amplifiers? None of the other efforts you mention would affect that, and using unbalanced lines would actually make things worse if the amplifiers themselves are differentially balanced.

I eventually decided to try the ISOMAX, thinking the problem was in the impedance matching of the preamp and amplifier... dame problem.

What is Isomax??

No, I have never tried calculating impedances.  Not even sure how to do that.  I remember a cable tv installer told me that a coaxial splitter causes a 6db loss to the signal when inserted.  I was thinking that something like that is going on here, but I'm not using a splitter anywhere, unless the 2 pairs of balanced outputs are internally split.  A few minutes ago I disconnected my Audio GD headphone amp from my Denafrips DAC.  I had it connected using the unbalanced RCA interface.  The same type of problem was happening there.  The sound immediately got more resolving simply by disconnecting the RCA cable. Denafrips says not to use the unbalanced  RCA when using balanced XLR -- not sure why however.  I know that all my source components are fully differential, including both amps.

As for the ISOMAX, I tried it in hopes of getting a line signal from the amp's output.  The thinking here was that it would be separated from the amp's input signal.  It didn't work either.  So, I disconnected the balanced input from the Jeff Rowland amp feeding the ISOMAX and the same thing happened, the sound transparency and reverb immediately improved.  The analog cabling is all Acoustic Zen Silver Ref II with Matrix Ref II on the sub.  This is where I'm at.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jensen+transformers+sp-2sx&oq=jensen+&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i...

You could look into using an active crossover between your Athena and ARC&Focal. 

Forgot to mention, the ISOMAX, though they sell it as transparent sound, it definitely is not.  So, I would never use it immediately after the preamp on a line level.  I was using it from the amp's output to be converted to a balanced line level that is then sent to the sub.  Same problem.