How to get balanced inputs working

THanks al for your input

Long Shot here ... don’t certain/some European and Japanese Mfgers use a different PIN OUT assignment/configuration than the Standard XLR PIN OUT configuration that is used in the majority of the XLR configuration connections

In a standard pin assignment ... Pin 1 is ground .. Pin 2 is positive and Pin 3 is negative

Is it possible that Pavet's MBL pre may be using a different “Pin” assignment and not lining up with the Auto Horizon’s PIN 1 2 3 standard configuration ..

From Wiki ...

“Prior to the introduction of this standard, the wiring of pins 2 and 3 varied. The pin 2 "hot" and pin 3 "cold" convention was typically used by European and Japanese equipment manufacturers, but American companies used pin 3 "hot" and pin 2 "cold". This caused problems when interconnecting equipment with unbalanced connections. The pin 3 "hot" convention is now obsolete but is still found on vintage equipment.[15] Pin 1 has always been ground and/or shield if the cable is shielded, and many connectors connect it internally to the connector shell or case”

Like I said .. LONG SHOT ... maybe you can check with MBL on their PIN assignment/configuration for their XLR connection on that model preamp and see if it aligns with the PIN out on the Auto Horizon Dac

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Thanks, Dave. An inconsistency or reversal of pins 2 and 3 in the connections between the DAC and the preamp would only result in an inversion of absolute phase, though, which would at most have subtle sonic consequences on some recordings, and no consequences on many others. It would not cause the audio to be absent.

It is conceivable to me, though, that differences between the two preamps in how the grounding of pin 1 is handled could contribute to the (quoting from one of my earlier posts) "small differences in grounding conditions that may occur depending on which preamp is connected" that I speculated might "mean the difference between the DAC working and not working" when its input select switch is wrongly set to the XLR position.

That speculation is also, of course, a long shot, but regardless of what is going on it would seem clear that the switch on the DAC should not be set to select an input other than the one that is connected, whether it happens to work that way or not.

Best regards,
-- Al

Davehrab. Great shot , that was the final thing I checked , it's a German made for us market and it checks all out pins ok , great shot though dave that was my last kick at the cat thanks dave

The audio horizon dac 3 has an input selector that is used to select between either 1) RCA INPUT or 2) XLR INPUT. This selector does not have anything to do with the output selection.

From your above post, the dac is connected to the transport using a RCA connection; therefore, the dac's INPUT selector must be set to RCA for any signal to be outputted in either RCA or XLR output.

Do you get any sound when your dac is switched to RCA INPUT mode? It is not clear that you have tried this.