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Mixing balanced and unbalanced inputs/outputs on Ayre preamp - amateur question!

Hello,

I have been enjoying my system for a few years but I am now in the position to start upgrading. I have a pretty basic question that I can't seem to find a good answer to. I am looking to upgrade my preamp to an Ayre K-5xeMP that accepts both balanced and unbalanced inputs/outputs. I will also be upgrading my DAC and it will likely also have balanced output as an option. I will also be adding a phono preamp (currently integrated with my pre) that will be unbalanced. My amp is an old Mcintosh MC2125 that is unbalanced. I would prefer to not upgrade the amp for a while.

Could I run both balanced and unbalanced inputs into the Ayre followed by unbalanced output to the Mcintosh? Or does the entire system either have to be balanced or unbalanced? I understand I may not be getting the best quality by mixing, but if I can mix the inputs/outputs it allows me to slowly upgrade all components to ones that accept balanced connections.

How my system may look in the near future
DAC balanced output -> Ayre balanced input -> Ayre unbalanced output -> Mcintosh
Phono preamp unbalanced output -> Ayre unbalanced input -> Ayre unbalanced output -> Mcintosh

Is this possible? Or is it all balanced or all unbalanced or it may cause some damage to the preamp? Of course eventually I hope to upgrade the amp and phono section, but I can't do it all at once.

Thank you for the help! I know this may be a silly question, but it's my first experience with balanced connections.
blefevre

Showing 4 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,104 posts
 
Im simply saying that people believe that anything with an xlr input or output is better than single ended and this is short sighted of the rest of the design of the unit. There are great designs that are single ended and great designs that are balanced (and some pretty poor implementations of both too).
Thanks for your clarification.
The quote above is very nearly my view; IME if the balanced line connection is done correctly there's no going back to single-ended. I find a lot of equipment in high end audio that have XLR connections that clearly don't do the connection justice!

With regards to internally balanced- such circuits *tend* to be lower noise and also lower distortion overall. Much depends on execution of course so there are always exceptions.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,104 posts
 
However, Ill forever disagree that balanced is always better for short runs as some of the worlds finest gear is unbalanced internally and sounds well, world class still.  
@frostdotcom

For example the Ampex 351 tape electronics. But if you examine the above statement I think you will see the problem with it.

In high end audio (which is more to what this forum is about) there are a good number of amplifiers and preamps that are fully differential and balanced from input to output. However that they are so says nothing about how long the cable is or the benefits of a short run of balanced cable.
In the studio you are used to hearing little difference between cables, as all of the gear you use probably supports AES48. That's pretty rare in high end audio, although there are a few preamps (both tube and solid state) that do (FWIW our preamps were the first balanced line preamps offered to home audio). Amps that support the standard are more common.

Quite often in high end audio people are used to hearing differences between single-ended cables. There is no termination standard for such cables so their construction can make a difference to how they sound. Balanced operation (whether the electronics are balanced or not, so long as the standards are observed) allows the freedom of no artifact from the cable- hence 6" can be beneficial over single-ended.


atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,104 posts
 
my bryston sp2 connected to a classe cav150 sounds better unbalanced than balanced. Remember, internally, all throughput is unbalanced. The balancing and unbalancing happens at the input and the output of the line level connections. In short runs theres no benefit unless the transformer or balancing circuit affects the sound in a positive way. In longer runs balancing becomes a big advantage. Source: current pro audio engineer with an EE degree, former professor in music technology.  
@frostdotcom
The reason that your amp sounded better this way is that the Classe uses a separate circuit in series with the signal to convert from balanced to single-ended and you can hear the effects of that circuit.

The statement from your friend is false. There are plenty of amps and preamps that are internally balanced/differential and there is a benefit from running balanced connections in short runs (even if only 6 inches); finally a transformer does not have to be part of the circuit (although its tricky if no transformer is employed).
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,104 posts
 
Since the Ayre has both connections its no worries.
Some tips:
The Ayre converts all single-ended sources to balanced due to its differential operation. So no worries on the input side.
All phono cartridges are balanced sources FWIW; the tone arm connection is where things go single-ended. Usually you can just replace the tone arm interconnect to restore balanced operation.
The advantage of balanced operation is not only longer cable can by used, but whatever cable used will have less artifact. For example in the phono you don't have to have an expensive cable for it to sound right, just one that is properly built.
Balanced operation is also a way of preventing ground loop hum. 
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