PASS LABS XA-30.5 vs XA-60.5

I have been led to believe that the Pass amps were designed to work best with balanced input. No c-j gear has balanced circuitry.

Unsound, good point but here are my thoughts.

Pass amps are balanced, so on paper, if you had a truly balanced preamp that you were happy with, that should be the way to go.

Some preamps have balance output jacks but aren't balanced themselves. You may or may not gain by using balanced connections. You can only listen for yourself and decide.

I would always choose the better sounding preamp regardless if it was truly balanced or "rca only". In my case, the CJ's sounded better than my previous fully balanced preamp. Running the Pass with rca's is fine. For me it was a case of 5 steps forward (better preamp) and 1 step backward (not being able to use the balanced input). Net gain was 4 steps. I just wanted better and got it.

If you want the full benefit of a fully balanced system, then your source should also be a fully balanced design component.. I would think.

Tvad: I totally agree with both comments. I don't feel the XA-60.5's would sound any better than the XA-30.5 with efficient speakers. I also feel with good match of impedance, it doesn't make a difference between single ended and balanced in short runs (unless there's a system specific noise which I have never encountered). Anything over say 2 meters long, I think the balanced cable would then sound better.

I think if there's noise in the system, the ground should be looked at. I have a VERY ELABORATE GROUND SYSTEM which I have had truly fantasic results with. Here's the skinny:

I'm usiing wattgate audiograde receptacles with a 20 amp dedicated audio circuit. I run a single 10 awg wire from circuit breaker directly to the receptacle - ungrounded.

The reason for this is because I have a 15' long section of 3" diameter type K (thickest available) copper pipe tubing buried vertical in my back yard outside of my stereo room (yes, this was a job to bury). I then have thick insulated copper litz wire that Stealth custom made for me (spades both ends) running from the copper pipe into the house and it's connected to the ground screw on the back of my BPT 3.5 sig ultra power conditioner. I then plug all my components into the bpt. The bpt is the only item plugged into the ungrounded receptacle. It's a design that Serguei Timachev from Stealth and Chris Hoff from BPT helped me design. It's aweome. I have the litz wire connected to the copper pipe with copper fasteners. The top of the pipe is exposed and sticks out of the ground 2" (low enough so I can go over it with the lawnmower). I have a rubber compression style cap with a hose clamp that I can unscrew to remove the cap. Once a month I go out and remove the cap and fill the tube to the top with water (as this increases the conductivity) and improves the sound when compared to an empty gound pipe. The trick is to fasten the litz wire as far down on the pipe as possible because you want the wire connection to stay as wet as possible. Fastening the litz wire to the top of the pipe isn't nearly as good, because the water dries out of the pipe from the top down (water level decreases from tube about 1/2" per day).

It's the best diy audio ground design out there IMO.