This is not the primary reason it has an advantage.
The noise that gets removed is the noise introduced by the amp or DAC, if it’s introduced by both sides of an amplifier it gets cancelled out.
The usual example of this is power supply noise, but it includes other noise inside the component.
However this can be a negative, it’s unusual to see balanced tube amps because that cancellation applies to the harmonic noise introduced by the tube, so SE tube amps are often considered better.
Again these are generalities.
The thing you want to avoid is if an internally balanced component has a poor SE out you don’t want to use it, whether this is the output of the DAC or the Amp.
I’m not sure I follow. The goal is for the circuit between components to be balanced and therefore cancel out noise picked up along the way. Like if your patch cables are running next to power cords.
Although I suppose at this point it’s a matter of semantics because the amp/DAC itself is part of the entire circuit so noise rejection can be considered for self as well. I was mainly trying to sum everything up so it’s super easy for a noob to understand.
No it does that, but outside of really long cable runs, and the fact it makes balanced interconnects sound less different to each other that’s not the win or the reason to use them.
If an amp is fully balanced that noise cancellation occurs inside the component, for each channel you have 2 parallel amplifiers, those will generally pick up the same noise while amplifying, and when the signals are finally combined at the transducer that removes all that noise.
The issue is that if you combine them before you get to the transducer, using an RCA interconnect between balanced components or an SE headphone cable from a balanced amp, then the component has to combine the signals in some way and short of very expensive transformers all it’s choices are poor.
Oh… it pains to listen his voice…
I bet he just failed with the cables from the start and did not even read the device manuals that clearly shows the fumble he did and then claims its a device issue…?
It’s like those 101 things for… those who need them.
If you have balanced Input (any device) and balanced output (any device) use a balanced cable…
If you have unbalanced input (any device) and unbalanced output (any device) use a unbalanced cable…
It’s not that hard.
Also don’t mix the two cause it’s just dumm and might have issues like this vpooper.
His Rode AI-1 (Audiointerface) has been acting up on the software side, was fine on the EMI front though. Fine in the sense that it had audio ground and USB-ground decoupled making single ended work just fine.
The replacement Scarlett Solo couples USB-Ground to Audioground causing the issues described in the video when running single ended.
His channel is somewhat small, yeah…
I would like to trade place with Dave. He is highly regarded in the electronic industry.
I really do not care how many subscribers or followers the “guy” has if things like this happen. lol
Dont be this guy. lol
His Rode AI-1 (Audiointerface) had something mentioned as ¼” impedance balanced outputs.
"impedance balanced, allows the rejection of external noise by ensuring any electrical interference is induced equally in hot and cold signal legs. This allows the common mode rejection characteristics of a balanced input stage to reject these common mode signals and hence maintain the audio fidelity of the signal."
So when moving / changing to a normal “balanced or unbalanced” connections / gear.
(so the man guy did know this, right?)
He should use a proper cable more suitable for the job. (not the wrong one or not blame the gear)
He’s right about the audio. Playing same time from both outputs but it’s also by design. Blame gear again?
Have connected many Scarlett devices for audio usage with USB and unbalanced connections to speakers. Guess what? Not one single error or disturbances in audio. It’s clean.
101 use right cables with right gear, ones again.
@EthanScully, Welcome to HFGF !
That was a good read - thanks for sharing the article. It dovetails nicely into what one of our regular contributors @WaveTheory posted “Is Balanced Better? Pros & Cons of Balanced vs. Single Ended”
We have a thread dedicated to discussion on that very topic, that you may find interesting.
Discussion topics are where individuals can go to discuss topics of interest civilly. We just ask that participants remain open to other opinions and to not attack those that are different from their own.
Thanks for sharing. I intentionally did not go into the depth of circuit explanation that was done in this article in my post above. I don’t know if that level of detail is necessary to help a lay customer decide if they should buy a balanced stack.
The biggest quibble I have about the headphones.com article is their referring to headphones as balanced. They allude to how whether a headphone is balanced or unbalanced is determined by the internal wiring, but keep using the phrase “balanced headphone”. I think that’s a bit misleading as every headphone driver will work in a balanced circuit, but not every headphone maker wires the drivers in their headphones to be connected to a balanced amp circuit.
The issue of crosstalk in an SE circuit presents a challenge. In truth, though, I don’t think it’s that big of an issue anymore. There are a number of SE designs that have reduced the crosstalk to essentially 0, or at least have lowered it to a level that is comfortably below the threshold of human hearing.
The main argument in favor of balanced amps and dacs, IMO, is external noise rejection, particularly in this age where computers are an increasingly common audio source. USB audio connections to a desktop computer can be very noisy, and the balanced amp/dac circuitry is the best way to remove such noise.
Which has nothing to do with “balanced” headphones, where the word is being used with a completely different meaning than the traditional one having to do with speakers, long cable runs and noise.
“Balanced” for headphones is not about long cable runs.
“Balanced” for headphones is not about noise.
“Balanced” for headphones is about inter-channel crosstalk and loss of stereo separation and everything that comes from that like staging and imaging.
I don’t know how many times this has to be repeated to you speaker traditionalists until you get it, and until you learn to separate the two topics appropriately.
Yes, that is the #1 thing “balanced” affects on headphones, if your drivers have such low impedance vs. the common GND that the voltage divider effect increases crosstalk to audible levels (like in some IEMs or Verum 1 type drivers). That’s the clearest case of what “balanced” headphone drive was invented to fix.
More power than its own SE output. Not more power than an equally-priced well-designed SE-only amp. Not as a general rule.
That’s just marketing. The industry is always trying to sell “the new thing” to everyone regardless of who really needs it or doesn’t. It’s like game developers recommending you the newest graphics card even if you can play their game perfectly fluidly at 1080p/30, just because they’re natural partners with the GPU manufacturers and each side keeps driving up sales of the “great new thing” for the other side.
Of course you went to the opposite end of the spectrum… Ultrawides are becoming way more common, most of them being 3440x1440/60+Hz. And there are plenty of advantages to those panels that have nothing to do with marketing…
The problem with this subject is that you have to untangle the fantastic mess marketing has created, then you have to get everyone to understand DC circuits correctly, then the pitfalls of AC circuits and then after you did all of that, you can just shut the entire conversation down with an “It depends.”
Because, if one wanted to, a headphone amplifier could have two galvanically isolated circuits up to the point where the TRS leaves the front of the device. Then there is no issues with current flowing from the “right” half of the headphone through the “left” since there is no way to complete such a circuit (outside of capacitive coupling in the wires, transformer and PCB, wich can be supressed).
This is another problem. Because the “it has more power”-argument most of the time assumes amplifiers are always voltage limited. To get 10W, you can either have 1V @ 10A or 10V @ 1A.
Ohm’s law is useful, just that in case of a 10V voltage limit, you will not get 10W through a 32 Ohm load (should be 3-ish W).
A 600 ohm headphone has no crosstalk problems unless you’re connecting it with a cable with a common GND wire for both channels and that wire is some ridiculously thin wire with 10s or 100s of ohms impedance. I will bet you you will not be able to hear a difference from amping it “balanced” in a blind or ABX test vs. an equally powered and THD+N spec’d SE amp.
(not the wrong one or not blame the gear)