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Adding Balanced Outputs to your amp?

Hey all:

I was just wondering what your take on upgrading your amp to have balanced outputs would be and if there was also anyone you could recommend to do that. I have a Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 CDP and I remember when I first hooked it up and did a side by side comparison, the Balanced Output added much more to the music and it was quite the significant increase in improvement. I upgraded my then SS amp to tube monoblocks and while it sounds great now, it's missing a little of that fullness that I had before that I want to attribute to using the balanced outs.

I also remember reading somewhere on the a-gon forums about the circuitry of the balanced and how some companies now don't really do a "true balanced output" or something of the like..

Do you guys think it's worth it to mod an amp to add balanced outputs? What have your experiences been? I'm thinking about doing that to my Cary Sixpacs

Thanks all in advance!
neway317

Showing 1 response by kr4

kr4's avatar
kr4
3,713 posts
 
It really depends on the context since the advantages of adding balanced lines depend on how noisy the environment is and how long those lines are. I run 10M interconnects in Manhattan and there's no difference between SE and BAL. OTOH, adding another input stage to an amp will add to the amp's inherent noise level since no active stage is absolutely silent.

Kal
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