duckworp
pfm Member
I was pleasantly surprised to read an article entitled “Unbalanced Is Best” in this quarter's Hi-Fi Critic magazine (the excellent subscription-only print magazine). The writer, Harvey Lovegrove, describes an A/B blind test he did: he compared a fully balanced XLR and an unbalanced RCA interconnect. The results come out clearly in favour of the unbalanced single-ended (RCA) input.
I say I am ‘pleasantly surprised’ as I have had a similar experience to the writer, but kept quiet as no one quite believed me. I have a Vitus amp and DAC/CD player with fully balanced XLR inputs/outputs as well as traditional RCA connections. After much listening to RCA interconnects I had on demo I ended up choosing the excellent Townshend F1 Fractal interconnect. However, as I have a fully balanced XLR output/input I presumed that the XLR option would be best, but before committing to buy the XLR I demoed the XLR version of the cable and directly compared the sound to the RCA interconnect. In the A/B (not blind) comparison I found the balanced XLR interconnect was not sounding nearly as good as the single-ended RCA. I told Sue from Townshend about my experience, but she was not surprised - I understand Max Townshend maintains RCA does generally provide a better sound than XLR, and this is exactly what I heard. Obviously I purchased the RCA version of the Townshend F1 Fractal interconnect.
Harvey Lovegrove, a recording professional and journalist writing in HiFi Critic, found exactly the same thing, through A/B blind testing from fully balanced Ayon DAC outputs into D-Sonic Monoblock fully balanced inputs. It surprised him too, but after talking to engineers he post-rationalises and gives complicated engineering explanations for the findings (to be fair it is only complicated as I am no electronics engineer).
He concludes that a fully balanced system can serve you well if you have things like nasty high-powered lighting systems, massive transformers and dimmer rigs in amongst your system, which is common in the Live environment but not so much in your lounge. So in the domestic environment he maintains you should keep it simple with single-ended inputs.
His A/B tests completely bear this out: the RCA was better than the XLR version of the same cable.
The fact that Townshend suggested the RCA would be better than the XLR balanced, the fact that was exactly what I heard, and the fact that Hi-Fi Critic in a blind test reported exactly the same, these things lead me to a conclusion: perhaps my own experience of preferring the sound from the rca interconnect over the balanced XLR interconnect is not so crazy after all.
Maybe, just maybe, sometimes unbalanced really is best.
I say I am ‘pleasantly surprised’ as I have had a similar experience to the writer, but kept quiet as no one quite believed me. I have a Vitus amp and DAC/CD player with fully balanced XLR inputs/outputs as well as traditional RCA connections. After much listening to RCA interconnects I had on demo I ended up choosing the excellent Townshend F1 Fractal interconnect. However, as I have a fully balanced XLR output/input I presumed that the XLR option would be best, but before committing to buy the XLR I demoed the XLR version of the cable and directly compared the sound to the RCA interconnect. In the A/B (not blind) comparison I found the balanced XLR interconnect was not sounding nearly as good as the single-ended RCA. I told Sue from Townshend about my experience, but she was not surprised - I understand Max Townshend maintains RCA does generally provide a better sound than XLR, and this is exactly what I heard. Obviously I purchased the RCA version of the Townshend F1 Fractal interconnect.
Harvey Lovegrove, a recording professional and journalist writing in HiFi Critic, found exactly the same thing, through A/B blind testing from fully balanced Ayon DAC outputs into D-Sonic Monoblock fully balanced inputs. It surprised him too, but after talking to engineers he post-rationalises and gives complicated engineering explanations for the findings (to be fair it is only complicated as I am no electronics engineer).
He concludes that a fully balanced system can serve you well if you have things like nasty high-powered lighting systems, massive transformers and dimmer rigs in amongst your system, which is common in the Live environment but not so much in your lounge. So in the domestic environment he maintains you should keep it simple with single-ended inputs.
His A/B tests completely bear this out: the RCA was better than the XLR version of the same cable.
The fact that Townshend suggested the RCA would be better than the XLR balanced, the fact that was exactly what I heard, and the fact that Hi-Fi Critic in a blind test reported exactly the same, these things lead me to a conclusion: perhaps my own experience of preferring the sound from the rca interconnect over the balanced XLR interconnect is not so crazy after all.
Maybe, just maybe, sometimes unbalanced really is best.
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