On the equipment I've owned (Hegel, Cary Audio, and McIntosh), XLR wins every time. They all were fully balanced. The differences were most definitely subtle, but noticeable.
SQ difference XLR vs RCA ?
I’ve read lots of the discussions on this forum about balanced vs single ended connections. My understanding so far is that balanced connection has better signal to noise than single ended, which helps if you have hum or noise problems or if you have long runs.
My question is this: if I have a quiet system with short runs, do balanced connections sound better?
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Thank you for your comments. Let me respectfully ask one question… is there a chance that you were reacting to the increase in volume and not the quality of the sound? It is really easy to react to the increase in volume… which does not in any way enable your system an advantage. I am fortunate enough to have a preamp that allows me to easily equalize volumes and then make comparisons. |
@coralkong , All my analog equipment runs balanced including the tonearm and phono stage. Digital runs are AES/EBU, Optic , Thunderbolt and USB. With the volume all the way up you can only hear noise on Phono with your head in the speaker. |
- 35 posts total