Balanced or Unbalanced from CD

[Hauger92]

I'm a little ways away from a cd player purchase but I need some feedback on cd players with balanced outs, ones without and DACs.. I noticed a lot of you are using an outboard DAC. Say I want to spend maximum $1500 on a cd player or tranport/dac combo. I've heard about the cambridge 840c (built in china ) , rotel, rega, bencmark, and arcam. I'm puchasing a Mac C220 with balanced inputs. What's the best route?

 

[David Matz]

I'm a little ways away from a cd player purchase but I need some feedback on cd players with balanced outs, ones without and DACs.. I noticed a lot of you are using an outboard DAC. Say I want to spend maximum $1500 on a cd player or tranport/dac combo. I've heard about the cambridge 840c (built in china ) , rotel, rega, bencmark, and arcam. I'm puchasing a Mac C220 with balanced inputs. What's the best route?

The Mac is not designed to be balanced as Ayre or Bat are, so there won't be any improvement in sound quality. It only has the inputs if someone already balanced cables.

 

[amey01]

Generally, don't use balanced if ALL your components aren't using balanced circuits. Many components have "balanced" inputs, but these are just converted to SE on the other side of the component's casing. There is no advantage in sound quality if this is the case, and sometimes there is a disadvantage as it depends on the quality of your component to convert a SE output to balanced.

Of course, listen to confirm!

 

[twich54]

Generally, don't use balanced if ALL your components aren't using balanced circuits. Many components have "balanced" inputs, but these are just converted to SE on the other side of the component's casing. There is no advantage in sound quality if this is the case, and sometimes there is a disadvantage as it depends on the quality of your component to convert a SE output to balanced.

While I tend to agree with some of what you said Amey, not all.

the way I've been told is.... if the component (source) is of balance topology and the next component in the chain is too, then I/C them balanced, regardless whether the following one may not be.

I also follow the plan that if I/C's are long runs (4-5 meters or longer) I like to run Balanced if connections allow.

If you have different I/C's test and listen to what your ears tell you.

 

[Hauger92]

Then why does Mcintosh put XLRs on their preamp if the internal circuitry is not?

 

[Hauger92]

Sorry....(didn't finish my sentence) Why isn't the Mac balanced all the way through? And what good does it do to put the XLRs on there anyway?

 

[Brad225]

I replaced the Shunyata Altair RCA between both my then Krell SACD and Sony SCD-1 to my ARC LS-25 preamp with Altair XLR and the difference in the sound very noticable.
This was only using a 1.5m cable so the benefit of XLR for a long run was not involved.
The XLR's were much more refined, deeper sound stage and better seperation around instruments and voices. This was with Altair RCA cables between pre and amps.

If the equipment you are looking at is balanced and your associated pre and or amp is, then I would think it would be worth using XLR's.

 

[twich54]

Then why does Mcintosh put XLRs on their preamp if the internal circuitry is not?

in a word....... flexibility. alot of mfgs don't employ balance topology, that dosen't make them bad, another one being CJ for example. Audio design dose have different approaches that both work very well.

 

[ralflar]

Cost. XLR-in looks good on the spec sheet.

Sorry....(didn't finish my sentence) Why isn't the Mac balanced all the way through? And what good does it do to put the XLRs on there anyway?

 

[ralflar]

Balanced connections can be beneficial between pre-amp and amp because that is the connection with the lowest signal level and therefore most susceptible to noise. However, if the source must be far away from the pre-amp then a case for a balanced connection between source and pre-amp can be made.

You mentioned Arcam. Their players only have single ended outputs. This explains why:
http://www.arcam.co.uk/downloads/finding the balance.pdf

I'm a little ways away from a cd player purchase but I need some feedback on cd players with balanced outs, ones without and DACs.. I noticed a lot of you are using an outboard DAC. Say I want to spend maximum $1500 on a cd player or tranport/dac combo. I've heard about the cambridge 840c (built in china ) , rotel, rega, bencmark, and arcam. I'm puchasing a Mac C220 with balanced inputs. What's the best route?

 

[timm]

are we sure Macs aren't completely balanced? I was told that they were... The quote was 'Sunfires aren't totally balanced. The only thing we have in the store that is - is the Macintosh'....

 

[gmartan]

Beats me...

I just bought the SACD, the C2300 and the MC402. Balanced connections were awful. Since McIntosh does make mono blocks people may want to have them close to their speakers and have the other equipment closer to their seating so balanced connections would minimize line loss.