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In Reply to: Questions about balanced and unbalanced interconnects posted by George S. Roland on January 18, 2015 at 16:23:17:
1.) Do balanced connectors always sound better than unbalanced ones?
Absolutely not, and often enough it is the opposite.
2.) Why is that the case?
There may be extra circuitry or a transformer involved to allow for the balanced cabling interface to work properly. The unbalanced circuitry may not require any of this. (Note - this is component dependent)
3.) For those in my situation, would I achieve better performance by using XLR-RCAs at one end and XLRs at the other or would this not yield any improvement?
XLR's work well when long cable runs and noise are an issue. If you have neither, I wouldn't worry about using them. There's no specification for driving the cold leg of the XLR with signal, which is why you can get away with the adapter cable.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Questions about balanced and unbalanced interconnects - Caucasian Blackplate 17:04:53 01/18/15 (6)
- Some misconceptions here - Ralph 09:40:55 01/19/15 (5)
- RE: Some misconceptions here - Caucasian Blackplate 10:04:58 01/19/15 (4)
- Sometimes yes, sometimes no, however we don't use transformers - Ralph 10:22:17 01/19/15 (3)
- RE: Sometimes yes, sometimes no, however we don't use transformers - Tom Schuman 03:55:52 01/22/15 (2)
- I think there likely is. - Ralph 09:35:03 01/22/15 (1)
- thanks. nt. - Tom Schuman 10:45:06 01/22/15 (0)