XLR/Balanced is designed to deal with Common Mode Noise and has a higher CMRR than RCA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-mode_rejection_ratio)
If you have very long interconnects (as is common in a studio or with things like wired microphones), this may be helpful as they are prone to noise in high EMI/RFI environments. IMHO, I think that this is pretty much hype in most consumer equipment. I have read Stereophile for a while and you can see what John Aktinson has measured, some equipment has minor lower noise floor differences, but by and large I have seen few components that are much better in noise with XLR than with RCA. The reason you see XLR on the Benchmark and Lavry is that they come from the proStudio world where XLR is very common. -MA P Floding wrote: >thingfish;180004 Wrote: > > >>So the other day I asked about a cable which had xlr to rca and you guys >>pointed out there is such a thing. Thanks :) >> >>Well now I am wondering about the importance of the whole balanced >>input/output thing. The Lavry DA10 has balanced outputs ( can also go >>unbalanced afaik) but my amp does not, at least not that I am aware of. >>So what is the deal with this ? Will I miss out on some hifi nirvana by >>not having balanced inputs on the amp ? >> >> > >I wouldn't worry too much about it. >Does your system sound good as it is? > >Balanced is in no way garanteed to sound better than single ended. It >all depends on the implementation. > >Balanced originates from the pro world to enable long cable runs >without mains hum being introduced. > > > > _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
