Headphone Heights Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Headphone Heights ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

RE: Balanced

Posted by Dawnrazor (A) on December 13, 2018 at 12:04:47

In Reply to: Balanced posted by Dynobot on December 13, 2018 at 10:17:39:

Yikes. theres a lot in that question.

There is balanced in that the source is balanced usually using xlrs. That is supposed to have a lower noise floor and allow longer runs since any noise picked up by the cables will be cancelled. My Lynx2b card is a studio card and comes with balanced outputs. My Parasound A21 has balanced inputs so that part is balanced too so from source to amp. I never spent much time a/bing from balanced to single ended. So I can't say it sounds better. BUT one advantaged of balanced out from the Lynx is that you can us a higher output at +4dbu vs. -10dbv like most single ended outs. Running at +4dbu does seem to sound better to me if the amp can handle it. And the Parasound can.

The other part has to do with running the headphones balanced. Ie each cup gets a separate ground. To do that you need to have cans that have two connections or are wired for balanced internally which I dont think there are many. Most are stock single ended and go to one 3.5mm or 1/4 stereo jack. But like my M1060s if they have separate inputs its easy to get a balanced cable and run them balanced. YES that did sound better in my case. Its like the phones just came alive. These cans are pretty revealing and I think the imaging was improved and the background was blacker. Hard to describe but my experience with going balanced made me decide to never buy headphones that can't be configured for balanced operations.

The parasound gets hot and is not much of an option for summertime listening. So now I am looking at some other amps. I just bought 2 of the dayton dt-1 T-amps and even though they are single ended I plan to use one to drive the right channel and a separate one for the left. Like a dual mono but using batteries.

Note I am not using headphone amps but power amps with resistors...

Cut to razor sounding violins

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

VH Audio

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---