Dartzeel CTH-8550. RCA vs Xlr

Use the RCA.

Big difference or small?

If the circuit is balanced, then XLR will give you better sound....if not, it doesn't matter. Balanced means it has a seperate circuit for the plus, and a seperate one for the minus parts of the signal. Call the manufacturer for clarification. Balanced circuits are more expensive to manufacture, and thus, many components are not, even though they sport the XLR connection. Balanced circuits are quieter if designed correctly.

+1 on Stringreen's post. The fully differential balanced circuit design allows cancellation of noise and other spurious signal induced along the signal path, thus much lower noise floor can be achieved than single ended design.

Big enough. There are transformers on the XLR inputs so the purity is not quite as good as the RCAs.

Jtinn...only if the circuit is a poor design

Stringreen: You do not know what you are talking about.

Jtinn...enlighten me....

I use the balanced with great results. It would be tough to do a good comparison since I would need to have the single-ended MIT Oracle MA REV2; I don't have any extra pairs laying around. :-) Although Jonathan prolly has made the comparison with his cables, I doubt the difference is huge with excellent ICs. Btw, the xlr inputs are truly balanced, unlike the dartzeel pre.

Ok. Jonathan got me thinking. It turns out I DO have a pair of MIT Oracle MA rev2 laying around and they are SE'd. I will shoot it out this weekend and report back.

@stringreen
You are simply repeating audiophile mythology (balanced always better than SE'd) without any specific facts. It all depends on the design of the gear. For example, I believe Daniel Weiss' gear also favors SE'd output over Balanced.

Single-ended is a little more alive and involving.

from Dartzeel: "To cut a long story short, we can say the whole acoustical chain is single-ended. The only moment when the acoustical signal could be balanced is when it travels into the electric wires. In the air, sound is unbalanced, asimmetric, single-ended, as you prefere. Why then, this obssesion to balance a naturally unbalanced signal? Is it not against nature?"

Depends on what you run with it. A guy I know was running his cdp into an 8550 single ended. We borrowed the cdp for a shootout where in single ended it was very average. We reconnected later balanced simply because thats what we had been using on the previous cdp and the improvement was astounding. The owner has since had Kondo I/C's reterminated balanced.