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I've been told that using expensive XLR cables with Atmasphere gear shouldn't make much sonic differnce BUT I hear huge differences when using different XLR cables. What have others experienced?
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in 2011. Hopefully, it is relevant to this discussion:
Vbr,
Sam
The issue is whether the preamp and amp supports the balanced line standard.
If not, you are going to hear pretty big differences between cables. An example of a preamp that is balanced but does not support the standard is the Audio Research lineup. Their balanced outputs are actually a pair of single ended outputs, each 180 degrees out of phase with each other.
But what the standard calls for is that ground should be ignored. This eliminates hum and buzz as well as cable artifacts. But to do that the output of the preamp must occur between pins 2 and 3 of the XLR and have nothing to do with ground (which is pin 1).
So as you may have surmised if you have read this far is that the Atma-Sphere preamps have their outputs set up in exactly this manner, and in addition the amplifiers have a true differential input, which is to say that they ignore the ground connection.
In this manner the cables become far less important to the overall sound. I just sent a letter to theaudiobeat.com about this very issue; its very common in high end audio. A link to the letter is below.
A very high capacitance balanced interconnect will introduce artifacts regardless of these technological features.
-part of that standard is that the interconnect cable will be a twisted pair within a shield.
Another part is that the source driving the cable will have a low output impedance, such that capacitive aspects are swamped.
What about Aesthetix pre-amps? Are they truly balanced as explained here so XLR cables should have negligible effect?
As far as I know while the output impedance is low enough, they have signal current in the ground and so don't support the standard.
Ralph, Your gear is one of the very few that uses a true balanced topology. Most amps I see use some kind of conversion from balanced to single ended to accommodate a balanced input. Even then most get it wrong and the ground is still used.
Dan Santoni
"I just sent a letter to theaudiobeat.com about this very issue;"
What a super site! Why they already have reviews from 2018 posted! Must mean they are forward looking...
Good exposition on balanced XLR's by the way. Things were simpler back when folks used actual transformers.
Rick
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