If you do your research, you will find that the only real benefit to using balanced is that you can do a long cable run. Something more popular in the studio.
I only use balanced for two reasons:
Some amps put out more power from their XLR outputs and I want every watt I paid for, damn it.
The big one one for me is versatility. I have a balanced DAC and that allows me to run four amps at a time. Is that needed, or even sensible? No sir, not a bit! But it’s what I do. The Asgard 3 is supposed to sound great and the price is right.
3rd hidden benefit is that balanced means there is a stronger signal since it SHOULD be using differential amplifiers meaning the end signal should be 2x the signal before hitting the balanced outputs.
As far as headphones, XLR for headphones DOES NOT give the benefits of the balanced inputs and outputs for equipment to equipment connections. The 4 pin XLR cable should only succeed in 1) eliminating cross talk between channels (ONLY if the amp is truly balanced) 2) allowed balanced amps to output to the headphones directly per amp which tends to be significantly more powerful than single ended.
Note: Amps designed for balanced and single ended have single ended added as an after thought, so to preserve the balanced performance the single ended operation is usually not as powerful.
It’s not quite that simple if the components are actually differential, but generally Balanced isn’t necessarily a win. You double the number of components to get some extra noise rejection, and you can get away with less gain, because you start with a bigger input signal.
So all things being equal, for a given price point the balanced amp will generally have lower quality components, the question then becomes if the advantages can offset that quality difference.
There are very highly regarded SE only Solid State amps in the >$3K range so not all Amp designers think it’s a win.
Yes I know it can get quite technical, but the bottom line is that nobody really needs balanced for home audio. It offers some perks, but you can do just fine with a nice SE amp. And you will likely save money on the amp and in cabling with SE.
I was planning to buy a black Magni 3 but I do not like the black knob and it doesn’t match the silver knob on the black Modi. I think grey knob on black looks best! So I may spend an extra $100 and get an Asgard with DAC instead.
That was mainly regarding the burson conductor 3, you are just fine with your current dac inside there in terms to price vs performance. If you did want to upgrade though the bifrost 2 is a great pairing but doesn’t ness make sense price wise
It’s a decent bit higher quality multibit imo, so it would be an upgrade. But imo I would just stick to the dac you have in there, so I would just wait until you want to upgrade overall
Should I add the $100 DAC card for the Asgard or get a Modi 3 for same price? I am guessing the card has exactly the same components as the Modi minus power supply and the missing digital inputs. I am using only USB source and dont like the wal warts.
So I think if you want convenience get the integrated dac, it’s solid. If you wanted to prioritize a bit better sound, the topping e30 is a pretty good match imo
$30 more and you get more DAC source options + remote. Easy recommend there over the built in Asgard DAC options. As M0N mentioned, only get the DAC if an all in one is really what you for a cleaner desk/less wires/etc.
