Also, it typically makes a noticable difference on iems though, but with headphones it’s much less noticable. Yeah it’s kinda hard to tell at times. It really depends on the stuff you use to test
i heard that the cross talk thing on the 888 is barely noticable
Sure, I mean that’s what I am hearing too. I’ve tested it against the 887 as well. Balanced vs unbalanced. It MIGHT make a difference to some people. Amirm, who does the AudioScienceReviews, has stated he does not believe there is a benefit for headphones either. Even Zeos in his review of the SP200 stated he wasn’t sure at that point-and-time and was second-guessing himself about the benefits of “balanced”… which came AFTER his review of the Ethers, I might add.
I won’t dismiss anyone who says they hear a difference. I personally don’t think there is any real tangible benefit in most cases… but I would urge anyone to hold off on making that judgement, “Does balanced matter” until they take a step back and REALLY test it for themselves.
I definitely don’t think it should REALLY be a point of focus when shopping for a good headphone amplifier.
yeah but in another video Zeos called himself a balance whore lol. yeah i really want to try balanced and see for myself. I’m really liking the monoprice 788. has a EQ and built in DAC. I assume i can bypass the built in dac with another dac or something. their selling for 350$ on ebay
So I ran the 788 for a while. Just to point out… like the other 3 THX amps, it’s also not balanced end-to-end if that matters to you. It also is impossible to bypass the built-in DAC. Even if you plug in another DAC source… it’ll still re-digitize the signal… then process it a second time.
ah, so maybe i’ll try something else then
The main reason I used balanced is because my amps are designed to be balanced. That’s pretty much it. If they weren’t balanced, I wouldn’t really care. It just happened to be that the amps I like the sound best ended up being balanced, as a lot of modern high end amps are designed balanced
I’m no electrical engineer, but I could imagine that designing a ‘mono’ amplification circuit versus a ‘stereo’ one would be easier? Hence why balanced amps might tend to go for a ‘balanced’ design…
I don’t know if that’s it, but balanced has been a common trend that’s gotten more prominent. It’s kinda been something the consumers see and think it’s better because it has balanced, and it’s not as good because it doesn’t have balanced. So even if something might sound better single ended, it’s in the manufacturers interest to make it balanced to appeal to people. Also I mean c’mon why does the fiio k3 have balanced, like the fiio k5 pro is a better product and doesn’t need balanced to sound good
Yeah for marketing purposes does make a lot of sense as well. Well more sense than what I said at least… =P
Well I mean have you seen an amp that’s balanced not advertise that it’s balanced? Single ended amps don’t advertise they are single ended lol. I’m not saying that balanced is just a marketing gimmick, but I do think it is influencing the trend for new products to push towards balanced even if a single ended design would sound just as good
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thats cause it’s better for headphones. makes em sound better. people want the best sound out of their headphones. yeah
Then go out and buy your fully balanced amp already then lol. There’s lots of options out there now 
Meh, I’m too frugal to go thru the expense of purchasing the cables if I don’t need ‘em. I’ll wait till I get to hear something first hand and then make the call either way. Ha, I finally got the bug to try everything blindly out of myself…ahhhhhh satiation feels good! 
yeah i’ll have to learn to make cables. 45$ for a balanced cable is lame
for the actual good ones, they go much higher LOL
I mean you can get solid balanced cables for cheap
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i wouldnt know, im too autismo to leave my cables not personal
For the most part I wouldn’t bother with high end cables unless you have a really high end setup, stuff like the amazon basics or monoprice cables are great for interconnects, for headphone cables stuff like periapt, hart audio, capistrano cables, etc work very nice.
For interconnects you mainly want good shielding with quality connectors like neutrik or amphenol, with flexible enough wires. Also for an interconnect you want it to be short and not have unnecessary length. For headphone cables you want something that’s not that microphonic with flexible and non tangle wire, with the aforementioned good quality connectors
You can either buy premade or make your own and get good results, you don’t need to spend a bunch to get a quality cable imo
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