Balanced versus single ended


From my experience, every situation that had both options, the balanced connection and/or increased gain sounded better, regardless of the bolume knob’s final position. More detail , air, emotional connection etc. The single ended cables used were good, not the bargain or so called high end extreme.

Sometimes using balanced or xlr it involved just the source, but optimally it carried through thd entire chain.

Anyways, my question is: has anyone ever thought that single ended sounded better?given the 2 options. Im only referring to a truly balanced connection.

I ask, because a manufacturer who makes tube amps, recommends single over balanced connection. Is there something else involved in this decision, additional parts or labor complexity? Is the signal path extended?

Thanks in advance

 

recluse

n the conversations with him, I mentioned that, in my mind, for balanced to work at it’s best, it should be designed in layout (from the active transmission end and at the active receive end) with an RF design and build mindset, where the field effects are a major consideration, down to the board mounting points and any local potential of the chassis and circuit boards in having any additional field effect interference. Just for the sake of the last little bits of attainable perfection in actual gear. Also, that these active aspects should be mirror imaged against one another and that includes a localized short run mirrored power supply for said mirrored circuit halves.

@teo_audio Honestly you don't have to do any of that! As a sort of proof, look at the studio gear used to make LPs and CDs- none of that involves any such practice. As you recall, we've been doing balanced line longer than anyone else in high end audio, and I've yet to see where any of what you suggest would be a thing. Look at it this way: a lot of studio gear employs transformers to execute the balanced operation and those transformers don't have nearly that kind of bandwidth nor do they need to.

Since the balanced line system is supposed to ignore ground, you really don't have an issue of 'any local potential of the chassis and circuit boards in having any additional field effect interference'. Such might become an issue if AES48 is ignored in the design.

Unfortunately this question can not be answered in absolute terms in a general manner. It is always component to component dependent. 

Example: all of my components are single ended: preamp, mono blocks & sources. My preamp is capable of driving long runs of quality se Interconnects.  25 feet from preamp out to the mono blocks with no issues. Other quality preamps may not be so endowed.  

Additionally,  many "balanced" preamps output from 6-9V to the amplifier(s). My mono blocks only require 1V to achieve full rated output. 

My se Interconnects are all the same throughout my system, are hand made by myself with great shielded cable & superb connectors. 

Essentially, one "size" doesn't work for everyone.  You must not have an inflexible mindset & experiment. 

That said, if you have equipment with XLR connectivity exclusively then you have no choice. 

I am runnning Triode Audio TRX-M845 mono blocks into Acoustic Zen speakers.  The exact set up that has won several "best in show" sound room awards.  So I asked Triode what cable format they use.  They answered they use RCA cables in every situation.  Who am I to argue with them? 

True balanced-need to be input to output

on all gear or it’s not truly balanced ,just converted to rca or 2 wire?

 

@fsonicsmith

“As an owner of an ARC Ref 6 and Ref 80S and Ref 150 SE I know that Warren Gehl and Co strongly suggest running balanced with the very best IC’s you can afford. I conducted listening tests with a wide assortment of balanced IC’s at all price ranges and heard huge differences. I settled on Cardas Clear Beyond. ‘

I just saw this. Very nice system. As an illustration to the forum… I am going to repeat your text with my experiences. This is in no way saying you are incorrect. But I am pointing out no matter how similar your systems the answer can be different.

My experience: As an owner of an ARC Ref 6SE and Ref 160s and Ref 160m monos, I know that Warren Gehl and Co strongly suggest running balanced with the very best IC’s you can afford. I conducted listening tests with a wide assortment of balanced and unbalanced IC’s at all price ranges and heard huge differences. I settled on Transparent Ultra after extensive testing of Cardas Beyond. I found no significant audible difference between single ended and XLR.


There are a lot of similarities in our systems and yet to me in my system Transparent was far superior to Cardas (I tried all kinds). But we definitely agree that there are very large differences in the sound quality among interconnects.