Understanding Balanced Audio

[Voifi]

Edit: Incorrecto

[Davidibiza]

Ok. Now I understand…

[Voifi]

Edit: Incorrecto

[MazeFrame]

@Davidibiza

Where is that signal compared and the noise eliminated?

In the recieving unit.

I explained some of it here:

Balanced and Unbalanced Signal

Balanced and Unbalanced And how to turn one into the other [image] On Balanced, the signals being 180° apart enables you to summ them “loosing” the noise in the process. Another plus for balanced is the fact the shield (= Ground/GND) does not carry any signal, it soley shields the signal from EMF. That is all fine and good. Turning unbalanced to balanced is easily done using what is called a DI-Box. The components in them varies, the concepts are super simple: Op-Amp balanced (active balan…

[Davidibiza]

So the DIbox is in the headphones/item?

[MazeFrame]

No. Each driver has + and -, there is no ground on headphones.

[Davidibiza]

Ok. I am going to read that post that you showed me…

[Voifi]

@MazeFrame

there is no ground on headphones.

Uhh…wha?

[Davidibiza]

Ok. I think I am more confused now than before…

[Voifi]

Well you don’t really need to know any more than which connector to use.

[MazeFrame]

The connectors for balanced:

Think of balanced like this:

GND is only for shielding, when the power is high enough, interference won`t matter.
When you got 2.2V between GND and + and -, you got 4.4V between + and -.

[BluJay614]

Unless you’re fucking Monoprice

[PavelCoelho]

Sorry for the dumb question, which is probably answered somewhere on the internet…, but I just wanna make sure it would be fine if I put an adapter to my 2.5mm balanced cable (from my balanced headphones) and use it with my unbalanced 3.5mm amp?

[MazeFrame]

When your headphone takes balanced, you can run them off an unbalanced source.
Common the negative (or positive) to Ground, then hook up left and right to either side.

The other way round (balanced out, unbalanced in), you should avoid that.

[PavelCoelho]

Thanks for the reply! That’s good that I can use balanced headphones on unbalanced devices, that makes unbalanced dac/amps kinda universal, as long as I have an adapter. I believe I’m not losing sound quality in this scenario though?

[abm0]

Don’t confuse the balanced (noise-rejecting) interconnects between different pieces of source equipment, over many many metres of cable, that this topic is about, with the so-called “balanced” amplification and connection schemes for the much much shorter amp-to-headphone connection.

EM noise has nothing to do with why “balanced” headphone connections exist. That’s something else entirely, it’s for common-mode noise rejection (crosstalk between L and R) and is meant to improve the stereo presentation: Can Someone Explain Balanced to me?

[Davidibiza]

Thanks, in the months that have passed (5¿) I’ve managed to understand balanced

[MazeFrame]

@PavelCoelho

I believe I’m not losing sound quality in this scenario though?

You would just make your balanced headphone into an unbalanced. I don’t see how that looses any quality.