I have an all ballanced system so I am not biased when I say that it is absolutly a non issue in most cases. If you have a ballanced piece of equipment, it may sound identical going through the ballanced or single ended/it may sound better going through the single ended and it may sound better through the ballanced just because the single ended connections use cheaper wire than the ballanced!! This is often the case so there is NO WAY to tell unless you listen. And besides many ballanced connections are just turned into single ended on the inside and the unit is not ballanced at all-it just has the connections! You have to have a complete ballanced fully symetrical system for the ballanced to do any good. And then there are still trade-offs where many people would still prefer the same system using the single ended connections. It's a matter of taste.
Does balanced interconnect sound beter than RCA?
I'm in the process of upgrading my system and looking at new/used integraged amps. The amps i am considering are the sim i-5, the plinius 8200 mk 2, perreaux 200ip and the classe cap151. Some have have both balanced and RCA connectors for the CD player and some don't. Can you hear the difference of the Balanced connection versus the RCA connection? It seems that their is a lot of very expensive equipment that does not have balanced connections which would seem to indicate that it doesn't necessarily need to be there. Is it worth getting an amp or cd player that can utilize balanced connections?
thanks,
jmillen
thanks,
jmillen