Phil Leigh;578190 Wrote: > You will get varying answers to this. IMO, no, it doesn't matter for 3ft > connections at line level, such as between SB and pre-amp/amp. Balanced > is really important for very low level signals such as microphones. I'm one of the people who disagrees with Phil on this.
The most obvious benefit of balanced is the relative immunity to interference because of the common mode rejection effect. (Simplistic explanation: the induced noise is in phase on the two signal wires, and when one is inverted to be added to the other, the noise becomes out of phase and cancels itself). And as Phil states, this is most in evidence on long runs and/or low level signals. But there's another, more subtle, benefit to balanced: it galvanically isolates the ground planes of the source and load. I believe this has an advantageous effect on the noise levels, resulting in a "blacker background" (if you'll excuse the audiophile jargon), which in turn reveals a finer level of detail. This effect is independent of cable length. -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82122 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
