Does balanced interconnect sound beter than RCA?

I have an all ballanced system so I am not biased when I say that it is absolutly a non issue in most cases. If you have a ballanced piece of equipment, it may sound identical going through the ballanced or single ended/it may sound better going through the single ended and it may sound better through the ballanced just because the single ended connections use cheaper wire than the ballanced!! This is often the case so there is NO WAY to tell unless you listen. And besides many ballanced connections are just turned into single ended on the inside and the unit is not ballanced at all-it just has the connections! You have to have a complete ballanced fully symetrical system for the ballanced to do any good. And then there are still trade-offs where many people would still prefer the same system using the single ended connections. It's a matter of taste.

There's a really good thread in AudioCircle that deals w/ this topic. I really like my friend Dejan Veselinovic's (AKA the Serbian Hope) answer, as it is original and thoughtful. He says RCA usually sounds beter than balanced if the ground is filtered. My current setup happens to use RCA interconnects and a 3KW, 220V/110V ONEAC islolation transformer/filter that has a patented "Virtual Ground" feature that isolates the building's ground from the transformer's. My system is real quiet--spooky quiet.

http://audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=8355

The answer to your question is perhaps. But you need to perform comparisons in your system to be certain.

I won't pretend to be an expert, but to the best of my knoweldge, a system need not be fully balanced in order to obtain any sonic benefits from using balanced or XLR connections and cables.

In fact, truly balanced components are generally much more expensive and rumor has it that any sonic benefits of truly balanced components are often times negligible at best.

Depending on equipment design, (and without regard for true balance design) there are several potentials where balanced ic's can provide sonic benefits to a given system:

o Balanced connections can sometimes provide a lowered distortion and/or noise floor.

o Balanced connections typically put out approx. 4 volts when compared to the approx. 2 volts from single-ended connections. This doubling of the voltage alone can provide little to much in the way of macro-dynamic swings and more pronounced bass in some to many systems. Thus giving you a little bit or a lot more of that live bite, just like live music.

o Balanced connections, as opposed to single-ended connections, usually allow for much greater cable lengths with little or no signal degradation.

Components need not be fully balanced to take advantage of any of these benefits. The components only need to provide balanced inputs and outputs.

Personally, I wouldn't want to leave home without balanced ic's.

-IMO

Balanced lines provide imunity to noise pickup, and are of great benefit to pro sound folk who work with a tangle of long wires. Their benefits are mostly irrelevant in the home audio situation.
The higher voltage signal (4 volts vs 2) would tend to help. However, if your preamp has good output voltage capability, (most do) one can crank up the gain in the preamp, and lower the gain in the power amp, and run single-ended lines at higher voltage. I do that.

Here are some FACTS:

Is there a simple explanation of the difference between single-ended and balanced operation?

In this context, the terms "single-ended" and "balanced" describe the type of electrical interface between components: i.e. preamplifiers and power amplifiers. Single-ended interfaces use a "common" conductor (shield, ground or instrument chassis) as a signal return path. Balanced lines, on the other hand, use two dedicated conductors to provide forward and return paths for signal. The ground connection in balanced configurations is accomplished by means of a third, dedicated, ground conductor. Any two components in your system will, most likely, have a measurable voltage difference between their chassis. When a single-ended cable is connected between these two components, this voltage difference will appear along the common conductor (shield) of the interconnect. As a result, the shield will now carry the parasitic ground noise current between the two chassis. Since the shield is directly in the signal path, the voltage drop along the ground conductor will be combined with the signal that the interconnect carries. The result will be added noise and distortion introduced directly into the signal path. In a balanced system, a separate shield or ground conductor will be used to connect the two chassis together, reducing the voltage difference between them. But the voltage drop across the shield will not add to the signal, because this third conductor does not carry the signal. What flows through the balanced interconnect is a clean signal, separated from extraneous ground current and noise. Additional benefits are derived from the fact that balanced circuits are inherently symmetrical. The balanced nature of the internal circuit greatly reduces transient demand on the component power supply, further improving signal integrity and noise immunity.

What makes the balanced interface superior to a single-ended interface?

The superiority of the balanced interface comes from at least four areas:

1. Connector quality. This one is probably the easiest to understand. Balanced XLR connectors use large diameter signal pins. They also are superior to the common RCA in that they provide a positive locking action. They incorporate properly designed strain relief as a feature. In the case of an RCA connector, the signal-carrying ground conductor also works as the strain relief - a situation far removed from ideal. Many of us have experienced broken RCA connectors when subjected to lateral forces - including the weight of some high-end interconnects. The high degree of mechanical and electrical integrity makes balanced XLR connectors the natural choice when signal integrity counts.

2. Balanced interface noise immunity. When discussing different signal interfaces, it is important to evaluate their immunity to various noise sources. One group of these sources is represented by noise currents that flow between different chassis in a system (and between different parts of the same chassis, in fact). We shall call them ground noise sources. The second group includes various external sources that do not have a direct electrical connection to our system, but can affect it through their electromagnetic fields. Items commonly included in this category are various RF sources (radio stations, RF remote control transmitters, etc), magnetic fields (fields commonly found around large power transformers, power lines and home appliances), and electrostatic discharge events. Because of if its three-wire configuration, a balanced interface is substantially more immune to all of the above interference sources. By using balanced interconnects throughout our system, we, therefore, noticeably improve our signal integrity - our music signal is much less affected by extraneous noise.

3. Internal power supply-gain stage interaction. It has been stated thousands of times before that the power supply has an enormous influence over the resulting sound of a product. With this in mind, we can take two different design approaches. One would be to put very high requirements on the power supply and then hope that it is up to the task. A second approach would be to simply minimize the demand on power supply performance from the start. Single-ended circuits put very high demands on the power supply's ability to keep up with signal-induced current fluctuations. Single-ended signals produce changes in gain stage current that must be accomodated in the power supply. Unless the power supply is capable of coping with large and fast current changes, it will constantly fall behind and the resulting sound will be degraded. Balanced circuits interface with their power supply in a "balanced" fashion. There are two gain stage currents present in the balanced circuit at any time. By the very nature of a balanced circuit, when signal appears at the input, these two currents will change in unison. One will increase, and the other one drop by the same amount. The resulting gain stage current change can be made almost infinitesimally small. In the ideal case, the power supply will not see ANY current fluctuation at all, and its job will become quite easy. This reduced demand not only makes power supply design far more efficient, it improves the performance of the power supply substantially.

4. Many of us believe that symmetry is good. Balanced gain stages are inherently symmetrical. Little wonder then that many famous designers reached for balanced circuits long before the word "balanced" was used in high-end audio. As long as forty to fifty years ago, when all stereo components contained nothing but RCA connectors, many now classic designs were already completely balanced internally. To work with the RCA interface (the only one available at the time), one input of the balanced circuit was simply grounded. Why would designers use fully balanced internal circuits with RCA jacks for interfaces? The answer is that, even then, many designers believed in the inherent superiority of balanced designs.

There are also many threads regarding same in the Agon' forum archives.