The whole balanced thing is complicated. There is no singular " balanced configuration " it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and you need to makes very sure the connection style of your desired balanced headphone cable both physically and electronically phase wise, matches what comes with your intended amp…Take the Fostex TH-909Mk2…what makes it the Mk2 is Fostex boasts it is now Balanced CAPABLE…Fine Lawyer speak, but good reson it’s in there…This $ 1400 headset —well, it only comes with a standard NON-Balanced cable…want the balanced one you probably thought it came with…well Sir, thats a proprietory cable, only we make it, and it will cost you another $200…So now you buy the cable, and go to plug it into your new balanced amp, physically it matches, so why isn’t beutiful music comming out of your set up…well think back again to what I said about " Proprietory " hint hint - they only want you buying from them…WTF, the connector says it’s this new 4-Pin XLR style…yea it is, an so is your amp, the 4 Pin XLR, those that know will tell you came out originally by Sennheiser for their ballanced famous HD-800 headphones…yea, who cares…well these 4 Pins of the XLR…are either positive electronically or negative…and the have to match between amp and can…They do in most cases…however - Fostex is also trying to sell Amps…well now they’ve got their hooks in you…you have to buy their Fostex HPA-BA4…cause the balanced positives and negatives are the only way to get your $1,800 headphones and cable finally putting out balanced music…The amp is like $600, and it is truly an absolutely wonderful amp Z has a review on it on his site, and hes all orgasmic about it.
Fostex also has another balanced headphone, I think the woods 60, but it uses yet another balanced type of connector - A 2 pin XLR, again - cable only available from them as well as the only matching 2 Pin XLR Amp…
So look before you leap, ballanced connection types are still the Wild Wild West, and you can be in a whole hell of a lot of more head aches and CC charges than you were originally planning on…if you have to buy adapters to make it work, well than it’s all a pointless exercise, cause a chain is only as strong as its weakest link…So, after spending like $2,500 to get this above system all matched up, what did I think,well I certainly could hear a mild improvement, between listening using the balanced cable, compared to the non balanced cable connecting between headphone and ballanced amp, that also has a standard 3.5 mm connection…but not nearly what I was hoping for…Worn out, I kept it all, but if I had it to do all over again, I would have put the savings into maybe a slightly better headphone, but where I think it would have been most spent, would have been put into upgrading to a better amp catagory, not that Im not spending all this cash to get a balanced matching system…In other words, forget balanced, if you can, spend more on an amp.