New TT : Balanced vs. Unbalanced Connection?

@tablejockey  thanks, I appreciate your attention to this thread.  

I do have a zphono, personally, I cannot hear a difference between it and the onboard pre in my current integrated.  The zphono is a nice piece, for sure.  I have been reading about the new Schitt Skoll Phono Pre, and aside from its fully balanced function, I am impressed its capabilities with the measured reviews.  Probably where I will start.  Open to comments on it.

What balanced gets you, mostly, with phono is a few db of gain.

I say, residential, short runs: no advantage, 

RCA single ended is just as good  as balanced xlr unless your running long spans of cable 

@willy-t , @elliottbnewcombjr , @rmdmoore , If I can straighten some things out here:

You don't get any more gain. That only happens with active outputs that don't support the balanced standard, AES48. When you run a cartridge balanced, it supports the standard. So no increase in gain.

For home use, the advantage is that a properly set up balanced line will minimize the 'sound' of the cable. If you've ever auditioned cables and heard a difference, that's what I'm talking about. The tonearm cable is the best place to really get that right; no matter how good the rest of your system is, it can't make up for colorations and loss from the tonearm cable. Even if the cable is only 1 meter, you still get a benefit as opposed to an RCA cable. Keep in mind the cartridge is a balanced source to begin with.

@atmasphere 

1++

Cartridges, with only a few exceptions are balance devices. For the best sound (no sound of their own), tonearm cables and interconnects should be balanced. This is mandatory for long runs. With tonearms the ground is isolated in a fifth wire, so RCAs can be balanced also, it is up to the manufacturer of the phono stage whether or not it is operated truly balanced. When we use XLRs we leave pin #1 blank.  

@gemoody 

Great choice of turntable. You may have to add some weight to the tonearm for the MP 200 which is on the stiff side. Soundsmith sells a set of graded cartridge screws that are great for tuning resonance. You want it down by 8 Hz. You might even be able to go lower. You can get the real compliance with a test record. the HIFi News record seems to be the most popular. 

atmasphere

You don’t get any more gain. That only happens with active outputs that don’t support the balanced standard, AES48. When you run a cartridge balanced, it supports the standard. So no increase in gain.

That is not quite accurate. It would be true if all balanced components supported the AES48 standard but - as you well know - many do not. As an example, Audio Research has many differentially balanced amps and preamps and they do not support AES48. Yet these designs still offer advantages over single-ended designs, as explained by Wikipedia:

"The primary advantage of the balanced line format is good rejection of common-mode noise and interference when fed to a differential device such as a transformer or differential amplifier.

It’s a simple fact that designs such as the excellent ARC products will yield 6 db greater gain when run in balanced mode. Or, if your prefer to look at it another way, they yield a 6 dB improvement in S/N. That can make a big difference, especially in something such as a phono preamp.

Ralph, I know that you understand all of this. But notwithstanding your fine trademarked and patented products, there are many other excellent balanced audio components on the market. You muddy the waters when you mistakenly claim they aren’t balanced. Here’s the spec on my ARC preamp, straight from the manufacturer:

REF5 SE: Main output: 12dB Balanced output, 6dB SE output.

I  like to say “all other things being equal” (same cartridge, same phono stage, same everything downstream) a balanced connection will get you 6db compared to an SE connection of all the same components.. usually this comparison is not actually feasible.