Balanced or RCA sound quality difference?

On my CD player connection to Preamp - I switched from RCA to XLR - didn't notice any difference either.

 

And balanced shure looks cooler....

 

Your Gungnir has an excellent balanced out so it really can't hurt to use it. Worst case scenario you don't notice a difference. You can DIY your own XLR IC's for the same price or maybe even less than DIY RCA's.

Not sure about the balanced topology of the as2100. Seems legit! As a CR-1020 owner, very envious.

In my younger years I thought going balanced with the IC's and headphones was THE way to go. I went down that route and found very little appreciable difference in the end, now I really don't even give a hoot. Basically excellent sounding single ended gear will sound better than mediocre sounding balanced gear; and that's just the generalization of it. True and well designed balanced cost 2x as much with 2x as much chance for failure and more demanding of tolerances between parts.

When you see an opamp in the circuit immediately nearby of any of your amp or source in/outs it's a big red flag. In these cases it's typically not the real deal but rather a compromised output actually drawn from the RCA's. You would be surprised at some of the "high end" gear that does this.

 

I went with XLRs to free up my RCA outputs to send the front L-R signal to my subwoofers. I didn't notice any significant signal difference (positive or negative) from the switch, but running stereo subs was a massive improvement.

(And yes, I gave up the .1 HT channel in favor of a huge increase in music reproduction. No big deal as we don't watch a lot of movies these days, and the subs still kick pretty well even with just the stereo signal.)

 

True enough.

I noticed that Triangle Art (turntable manufacturer) has just released an impressive line of valve-based electronics for their first salvo in that area - phono stage, line stage, mono-blocks. These were raved about by Peter at AVS Showrooms and they use only unbalanced.

AVShowrooms »

 

For me, the quality of the cables made more of a deference in sound quality than RCA or XLR connectors for shorter runs. I do like the positive click of the XLR connection even over locking RCA's. In my audio system, I use only balanced cables since the entire system is balanced all the way through and I have a long 7 meter run from my preamp to my amps. On my HT system, I use RCA cables for the 5.1 connection to go from my Oppo 105D to my pre-pro and XLR everywhere else.

 

I think I like the coloration of an unbalanced connection better in my system.

Today I found a couple Audio-Technica cables with Neutrik XLR connectors for a reasonable price so I purchased them. I placed them between my Oppo 205 and Parasound integrated and did a bunch of A/B comparisons with some Morrow MA-1 interconnects. The balanced connection affected the sound in three ways:

1. Less buzz coming from my speakers when turned up really loud
2. A db bump (not necessarily a positive thing, as my speakers are super sensitive)
3. A sharper sound. There was more definition and the center image was rock solid. Vocals were incredibly sharp and clear.

...but the soul was removed. With the unbalanced Morrow interconnects, there was a slight smear to the sound that is pleasing for me. There is more air around the instruments, and the soundstage was wider. It sounds less digital. I could crank the volume and the vocals were not as forward.

But tomorrow, I will play with a range of recordings. I am positive some recordings will sound better with the balanced while the majority will sound better with the unbalanced.

I adore choice and options in this hobby. I can imagine that a different room configuration and/or speaker placement would have different results, so I am so happy that I can have both balanced and unbalanced with only the press of a remote button to have a sound that suits my mood and/or the mastering.

 

Balanced cables are usually thicker and we know that in the world of home audio thicker=better.

 

...and not only in the world of home audio.. btw I use Nordost flat cables

 

I ran balanced from my Gungnir to my Audio GD Master 9 headphone amp. I have Headphile AKG-K340, difficult to drive via RCA. Much better volume after the cable switch.

 

Not all components with XLR sockets are 'true' balanced. Those that are true balanced will show the difference if there is one to be heard.
I was not interested in balanced until I bought a Schiit Yggdrasil. I can hear a difference. Yet, single ended does sound good.. the balanced has a more energized sound to it.

 

I agree that a true balanced design will give you the benefit from it's balanced inputs/outputs.

 

I smell the odor of mendacity in this thread. Unless you have very long runs there is no need to run balanced cables. You might mistake a gain increase as an improvement but it is just a gain increase and your system won't see an increase in amplifier power. It's your equipment, use it as you want but don't think that you have improved anything.

 

If you have the option, I would bet that if the sub has multiple inputs that the inputs sum, meaning you can run both RCA line outs to the subs plus the .1 channel from the surround sound.

I do this, after checking with the manufacturer. Line out for music, and line out plus .1 while watching movies. Might make the movie watching a little hotter which is fine with me. My sub can take it because it basically runs just above an idle, 3.5 out of 11 on the volume knob.

 

I've experimented lately with XLR/RCA connectors too with hi-fi, I don't notice any difference either.

 

In 1990, you could put $2.50 in a self-addressed stamped envelope and get back this little paper (PDF) about balanced interconnects from Mark Levinson at Cello. It appears dated now, no more informative than a good forum post or wiki page.

One of the cases there, postulating a change in audio quality, is the capacitive difference in the type of cables. However, the examples cited about consumer equipment having 2000 ohm loading are incorrect; audio equipment inputs are almost universally 47kOhms, and the effects of cabling and their specifications that would affect sound are far overstated.

The primary, and the only expected, advantage is the noise rejection capabilities. Unless you have hum being picked up by RCAs, or still have a 2G cell phone that makes that weird interference sound when it rings, the only benefit would be the robustness and bulkiness of the one-directional cabling.

 

@harby are you sure you aren't confusing a phono input load with a preamp line level? Preamps can be all over the place.
My current preamp has 60k ohms for single ended and 120k ohms for balanced.
My previous amp was 20k ohms input with no difference specified between single ended and balanced.

 

Agreed, not only with theory, but with experience too.

My 2-ch set-up: Modwright OPPO bdp-105 with "Truth" modifications, Anthem D2, Classe Ten (10), Vandersteen 2C Signature (I). My test runs (on SACD only, set to 2-ch):

1. Oppo original digital or LPCM fed to D2 vis HDMI cable (usual with good appearance, but not name-brand), D2 decodes the signal from CD (raw PCM with CD, LPCM with SACD).

2. Modwright Oppo RCA output with various interconnect including Gardas Cross and MIT T2 and Monster 350 or so (came from purchasing used gear) connected to D2's 5.1 analog RCA input (only using L, R inputs).

3. Modwright Oppo XLR output with just purchased Audioquest Diamondback (PSC copper) XLR cable connected to 2-ch XLR analog input of D2.

(Nordost Red Dawn XLR is used to connect the D2 to Classe in 1,2,3)

4. Modwright is connected to Classe directly using Nordost Red Dawn.

Conclusion:

Setup 1: Fine D2 quality with first rated detail (if not top, my stock OPPO 105 sounds like 2% more detail, but also a few % more harsh), excellent depth, smoothness better than Integra Research's RD7 (witch died on me a few years ago), convincing music instrument and human voice reproduction. Strong bass attack. Tightest bass I heard from all Receiver/Preamps includingg Anthem AVM20 (But not Krell). I keep using this for watching movies.

Setup 2: Softer with less aggressive t,z's, more opened human voice. Transparency and aggressiveness (D2's character) suffered slightly. Instruments were not necessarily more separated or "with more air" like those mentioned in Modwright Oppo 105 Review from Absolute Sound. But both instruments and humans did seem more in "height", especially for choirs. i.e. with Setup 1, the singers feel like stand in one row. But there were 3 rows from Setup 2. Also, pianos sounds good, closer to the real sound of my Yamaha C7 just placed in the same living room. When you switch from Setup 2 to Setup 1, you immediately feel "colder" piano sounds. Obviously, this setup is good for songs and small scaled chamber music. But, somehow, I am not satisfied with Modwright or/and D2's analog input.

Notice that I am using D2's XLR out to my Classe ten. So, you may argue with good reasons that the RCA analog in may not work well with the XLR out on D2.

Setup 3: After plugged in the Audioquest's Diamondback, with just several 10 mins of warming up by watching a TV show, I heard stunning results on the SACD "Exotic Dance" mentioned in Absolute Sound's review. The instruments all stand out. Detail and depth remains well, strength even slightly increased on the middle and low end. So, it is like adding fuller body on the sound produced by D2's DAC, with better separation and more natural decay. Just that, the solid state's "hard attack" nature is not there. You do feel the hit with Modwright. But it is more like a big person hitting you with slower speed instead of a trained boxer throwing at you a lightening punch. Over all, the sonic presentation seemed better than that by connecting Modwright Oppo to Classe directly. All the observations from Modwright review in Absolute Sound were presented. I did adjust the analog input levels on D2 so that the digital input and analog input would match. But if you hear the same source with different sound characteristics, it is tough to make the judgement. No matter what, the sonic improvement from RCA interconnection to XLR connection is so obvious. This difference cannot be obtained by switching the interconnect cable from Monster to Cardas (I do have both). I am guessing, it is a matter of matching between the XLR in and XLR out (D2 claims that they use fully balanced design on D2. Fully, but not "totally"). I need to do more to find out the real causes. However, for the current settings, the difference between setup 2 and setup 3 would be a very exciting surprise to me. Now, I am sure I am not selling this Modwright Oppo in the near future.

Setup 4: Sounds closer to Setup 3 than Setup 2, but feels softer, as if the Oppo cannot drive the Classe properly. But this setting is not practical for switching between HT and pure music on this 2-ch set-up. So, I don't plan to use it anyways. I am happy that it sounds actually better through the D2's XLR analog input, so far.

I noticed very few people mentioned the difference between XLR and RCA analog inputs on Anthem D2. Hopefully this provides 2 cents.

 

That's not true. Audio equipment input impedances are all over the place. Tube gear tends to have very high input impedances -- the PrimaLuna Prologue has something like a 185k ohm input impedance; solid state gear can be pretty low 20k or 30k. In fact its pretty rare to see a solid state amp or preamp with an input impedance even as high as 47 or 50k ohms. 30k is more like it, and lower. A Mcintosh MC275 has an 85k ohm input impedance. But an NAD C386 has an input impedance of 22k ohms.

 

The Anthem D2 has analog section input impedance of 20k ohms.

 

I just thought of a random manufacturer, Rotel, and Googled, with the first amp that came up:

Input Impedance
Line Level Inputs (RCA): 100kΩ
Line Level Inputs (XLR): 50kΩ
Digital Inputs: 75Ω
Phono Input (MM): 68kΩ​

I can Google for something more esoteric, Mark Levinson, maybe? A model 331:

Input impedance: 100k ohms balanced, 50k ohms single-ended. Voltage gain: 26.8dB.​

Kind of seeing a theme here.. like we have an industry specification that others may indeed diverge from.

The XLR impedance differences in the examples is likely because it is push-pull inputs using the same hardware - just signal-to-signal instead of signal-to-ground. The question posed earlier is if there could be any audio quality difference between XLR and RCA. Now we have to come up with some theory of why those inputs could sound different like OP pondered. Unless it is rejected noise, or an actual hardware design difference (such as transformers or different op-amps for one type of input) I can't think of any solid ones.

The article I posted was at least a devil's advocate position. If cable capacitance was a factor, could cables with even 20x the normal capacitance into any of the range of high-impedance inputs make an audible difference though (we hope not, for Morrow Audio cable user's sake). But more importantly: how different is that to the XLR inputs, and wouldn't we be using substantially different XLR cabling anyway?

 

There's really not an industry standard. If you look at the universe of amps and preamps the input impedances are all over the place. 47k is only standard for phono inputs. I'm not saying the cable capacitance is a difference maker necessarily just that there's no input impedance that's standard for line preamps or for amps.

 

I like balanced connections because they are much more immune to ground loop hum.

 

Which is because in balanced interfaces the audio circuit isn't forced to share ground. Almost universally ignored....like so far on this thread.

CJ

 

In the manual of the Ayre CX-7eMP CD player says that "When you have a choice a balanced connection will offer slightly higher sound quality than a single-ended connection."

I found this to be true for the specific CD player. This might be true also for other audio devices.