Balanced XLR to RCA Adapters: Good or Bad?

Herman, that link is to a post about the NAD 3155 by "Badman" in 2002. The system described there is his, not mine, but I understand your confusion. In any case, I should have described my whole system at the start. It is thanks to the internet and sites like this that I have learned that parts of my system are still highly valued, and others are not. That is the reason why I felt I should go for an upgrade. At the start I merely wanted to upgrade my tonearm. But the Comet would need to be modified to take another tonearm. It is designed to be used only with the LMT tonearm (so Sota told me). And I concluded it would not be worthwhile to modify the Comet; I should invest in another TT altogether. I read about other turntables, Thorens, Gerrard, Linn, etc., but with these bought second-hand I would not be sure of what I was getting, and I concluded that, if I was going to get a new one, it should be something really new and different from what I had. The Clearaudio TT’s with the CMB offered at least that.
The discussion that my post has started has alerted me to the XLR-RCA issue, and Rlg_audio’s comments about fake XLR equipment has convinced me to check with you people before investing in any upgrade involving XLR equipment. I’d be interested in hearing what you all think about the Ovation in comparison with the Ambient. The acrylic platter seems now to be outmoded, and POM is in…but for how long?

Ebm wrote:

Im using Cardas xlr to rca very good none is better.

Compared to what? No one's in a position to state that "none is better" because no one's heard everything out there.

I've also used the Cardas adaptors. Compared with my Doshi-built ones or with no adaptors at all they sounded sludgy. I might say, "none is worse" but I'm not so bold... something may be.

I'd just like to offer some clarifications with respect to the references that have been made to "fake xlr equipment." Three different situations need to be distinguished:

1)The phono stage provides an xlr input, and has a fully balanced internal signal path.

2)The phono stage provides an xlr input, which is routed into a circuit stage that has a balanced input and an unbalanced output, the rest of the signal path in the unit being unbalanced. That retains the noise rejection benefits of the fully balanced approach, and in so doing takes advantage of the fact that the cartridge is a balanced source. "Noise" in this context refers mainly to noise that is picked up in the cabling between the cartridge and the phono stage input, which may include ultrasonic and rf noise that may not be audible in itself but may have audible consequences. This approach obviously does not provide the potential benefits of a fully balanced internal signal path, but is likely to be less expensive for comparable quality.

3)The phono stage does not have a balanced input stage, and utilizes only one of the two signals in the balanced signal pair, with the other one being connected to ground. That would merit the word "fake" that has been used, as there would be nothing balanced about the balanced input. FWIW, I am not specifically aware of any such phono stages, but it wouldn't surprise me if some existed.

The tradeoff between the first two approaches should, IMO, revolve primarily around the quality of the particular designs, as well as cost, and not primarily on theoretical considerations of balanced vs. unbalanced. Whether or not the rest of the components in the system have balanced internal signal paths is also a relevant factor.

Regards,
-- Al

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The highly respected Aetshetix IO converts balanced to single ended at the input and then back to balanced after the equalization. I don't recall if it just grounds one leg or does some other conversion like a diff amp to SE but it is not balanced all the way through.

In fact for a phono stage it kind of makes sense as you don't have to spend the money to build 2 perfectly balanced RIAA equalization networks for each channel.

The Pass Xono uses number 3, SE inputs but creates an inverted output at the end of the chain to create a balanced output. It is not really "fake" in that it doesn't have the illusion of balanced in with XLR jacks, it has RCA inputs.

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Thanks, Herman. To clarify, my no. 3 was just intended to refer to xlr input connectors, not rca's, which of course are single-ended but make no bones about it :-)

Best regards,
-- Al