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Balanced v Unbalanced

One major benefit of balanced connection is that the signal conductors are not connected to ground (case) as is potentially the case in single ended RCA. Having the potential for noise inducing currents flowing in your shield signal wire is really dumb.

Whilst most people get away without obviously audible problems with RCA, it's not something you would choose to do from a signal integrity POV.
With balanced you can also benefit from common mode noise rejection.

Balanced doesn't necessarily mean because more circuitry therefore lower quality is achieved. ...its down to design... and don't forget that most of the studio chain and any professional environment will be balanced.
 
nicetone said:
Jim/Jez - always value and seek out your science based and down to earth replies on threads like this one.

Could I ask, what the implications would be in connecting a domestic pre-amp, with unbalanced RCA outputs only, to a pro-audio power amp with balanced XLR inputs only, using standard interconnect cable (RCA to XLR obviously, and correctly wired)?

Thanks.
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Wired correctly its not a problem at all. Just need to make sure you still use balanced cable with the shield connected to the RCA outer at the RCA end. I will find a diagram

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The balanced input will probably be set for a higher input voltage than RCA, so you will probably have to turn your pre up higher than normal, but professional kit often has input sensitivity settings so adjust to suit if the case.
 
DimitryZ said:
If the amp uses a differential toplogy and you supply only the positive leg of the signal, you will only operate one half of the amp and get one quarter of the power.

That would not usually be smart.
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Balanced input will look at the voltage difference between the signal wires, it won't operate just one half of the amp.
 
Keep an eye open for older kit built to fully differential standards but fitted only with rca sockets for domestic marketing. Such kit will often have rca pairs labelled ‘direct’ and ‘inverted’ for example. Sling an xlr or two between them and off you go.
 
DimitryZ said:
Perhaps. But only at the fraction of the power per given input level.
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Well sort of yes, but the ultimate effect and whether its an issue does depend on the power amp gain and source output voltage capability. Its not a condition of being balanced per se.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
T

Way to technical for the scope of this and irrelevant to the "I've got pixies at the bottom of my garden who make me magic mains fuses" crowd anyway...
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Hi please put photos up of pixies, as to balance, a EMC, RFI environment is the ideal place for them, in most case home/domestic use of balance would be pointless. As to noise/thermal related noise the colder the better and this in not normally in common mode but apparently random. Well I suspect it more like being a bully electron who bashes the others, he may be called Geoff.

Now signal cable not balance needs a RFI shield or Faraday shield and a EMC shield. But most use just the Faraday shield,mine has both. EMC shield has to repel or redirect magnetic interference i.e.50Hz radiated from a badly shielded transformer for example.
So covering the signal with Mu Metal would be good, but not at all flexible or practical.
Now to shield from Gamma Rays we need both and a thick layer of Gold, and for the listeners comfort a Lead lined bunker 50ft down in Granite. Plus all the kit in Lead boxes. And I would need lots of coffee with my Oxygen.

Best Col
 
My actives only have balanced input.

I found star quad, double shielded GAC-4/1 to be better than expensive QED it replaced. Mogami 2534 has a similar spec but I've not tried that. Capacitance isn't as high as some others of that construction (I need a long run, >10m).

It's worth mentioning the EMI environment is getting worse over time - even if claims of health or hi-fi impacts are debatable. In any case, what may have been the case 20 years ago may not be true now. It's worth re-testing assumptions.
 
I hate Hifi manufacturers who sometimes use xlr connectors on their components while remaining silent about their non balanced internals. Purely for marketing reasons. £££. A Linn phono stage comes to mind.
 
TheDecameron said:
I hate Hifi manufacturers who sometimes use xlr connectors on their components while remaining silent about their non balanced internals. Purely for marketing reasons. £££. A Linn phono stage comes to mind.
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I think most Krell components have XLR connectors and Cambridge Audio seem to use them a lot on their higher end stuff, so hopefully both components will be ok from that perspective.
 
The Chronicals said:
Unfortunately, being a musician of many many years, many albums contributions, many instruments, what sounds different is my forte. Highly trained and experienced at 'sound', 'Music' and how it is created. So when something sounds different, it does.
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Two comments on that.

1) What you say qualifies you to comment on being able to "hear a difference". But it doesn't qualify you to dictate *why* it occurs, nor to insist that your chosen 'cause' (e.g. use of balanced connection) will *always* produce an audible difference.

2) That *you* can hear a 'difference' doesn't mean everyone else will.

The reality is that 'balanced' in practice tends to involve more than one factor, and sometimes can mean a *worse* result in use - depending on circumstances. So it makes more sense to say people should try and compare if they can, but then decide for themself. Not by anyone who waves 'qualifications' as either a 'muso' or an 'injuneer' and tells them what they will or won't 'hear'.

Like Arkless, I've rarely bothered with balanced connections in home audio, although I'd regard them as being much more sensible in many pro situations because of the longer cable runs, bigger sets of kit, etc. And even in non-audio I've sometimes found a single ended run better in situations more demanding than audio. So no one size fits all.
 
What I'm planning to do (once the CD player arrives!) is wire it up with both balanced and unbalanced outputs. I'll then flick between them, playing the same music, to see if I can hear a difference. I've also got a sound level meter somewhere so if I do hear a noticeable difference I'll check it's not just that it's louder.

My guess is that I'm not going to hear a noticeable difference, but we will see.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Like Arkless, I've rarely bothered with balanced connections in home audio, although I'd regard them as being much more sensible in many pro situations because of the longer cable runs, bigger sets of kit, etc.
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Always best to try things before commenting on them. They are much better, and will eventually be the only option on home audio.
 
SteveG said:
My guess is that I'm not going to hear a noticeable difference, but we will see.
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You've just created bias there already I think. I'd also suggest having multiple people with an interest in music/sound having a listen also to balance your view, as we all know, as we get on, our hearing deteriorates, and we all have predisposed bias to a certain degree based on 'information' we have learned, be it from cable marketing, old fashioned engineers or forum opinions.
 
nicetone said:
Jim/Jez - always value and seek out your science based and down to earth replies on threads like this one.

Could I ask, what the implications would be in connecting a domestic pre-amp, with unbalanced RCA outputs only, to a pro-audio power amp with balanced XLR inputs only, using standard interconnect cable (RCA to XLR obviously, and correctly wired)?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

As DimitryZ and others have pointed out in various ways. The snag here is that seeing 'balanced' sockets on some kit doesn't mean they all work in the same way. e.g. is the balanced connection a 'floating' and 'isolated' one?

If all you are doing is grounding one 'balanced' input pin then you might end up with more noise (current generator) added than using an rca input. All depends on design details you may not know.

Bottom line: suck and see. In principle, balanced shielded gives you an added level of protection from interference. But it practice it will depend on what the designers did when they decided how the kit would be put together.

That said, I've never found the need for it in my home systems. But if you try it prefer it, that's a win for you.

BTW I tend to just buy cables from CPC/Farnell. Never been much impressed by more costly cables with fancy names, and tend of course to cut and fit plugs for myself.
 
Occurs to me that the longest balanced connections I've used were ones at JET (Joint European Torus) . Many tens of metres long with tiny signals. Given that JET used to leap about when the H-fields pulsed, there was a *lot* of RFI.

Contrary to this, the longest unbalanced was on UKIRT. Very tiny signals over a few metres of connection. But we did float the telescope. Only snag was that it tended to electrostatically drift up to a few kV. So gave you a real belt when you touched it. 8-]
 
The Chronicals said:
You've just created bias there already I think. I'd also suggest having multiple people with an interest in music/sound having a listen also to balance your view, as we all know, as we get on, our hearing deteriorates, and we all have predisposed bias to a certain degree based on 'information' we have learned, be it from cable marketing, old fashioned engineers or forum opinions.
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I'll ask my son next time he's home from university - as well as being a lot younger (and presumably with better hearing) he's also a musician. He's also getting into hifi using some of my mothballed kit so will likely be interested. No way I'm asking anyone else around though, as that'd mean I'd have to tidy up my study first, as that's where that system lives.
 
The Chronicals said:
You've just created bias there already I think. I'd also suggest having multiple people with an interest in music/sound having a listen also to balance your view, as we all know, as we get on, our hearing deteriorates, and we all have predisposed bias to a certain degree based on 'information' we have learned, be it from cable marketing, old fashioned engineers or forum opinions.
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You just jumped the shark.
 
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