RCA to XLR adapters?

The amp should not care if the input is balanced or single ended.

You will not get the benefit of a balanced preamp, but it will work fine.

Martykl, yes, we are all usually out on the lake ice fishing every weekend starting about September or so. I'll ask them next time I see them but I heard that Dean was injured up north recently so I may not see him very soon. Apparently he was near a penguin farm when they got loose and he was nearly waddled to death.

Mary Tyler Moore calls it 'upstate' but we call it up north. Northern Minnesota, with its vast penguin ranches.

Maybe you should spend more time here in the beautiful North.

Won't these advantages be negated if a single-ended signal is put through a balanced amp?

No. As soon as the signal is in the amp, it will be in the balanced domain if the amp is really balanced.

Using a Jensen may not be a bad idea- you have the SE preamp drive the Jensen, and then run you balanced interconnect as far as you need to the amp. I've done that a lot and its always worked well.

If the amplifier is truly balanced, it will not care if the input signal is balanced or single ended, nor will it matter if you use the RCA or XLR for that input.

I can imagine an amplifier that is balanced but does not take advantage of all the possibilities that balanced operation offers, but the idea that using a single-ended source with it might set off the protection circuit seems weird. If that is really true then there is a problem in the amplifier that needs to be fixed; I can't think of a reason why a properly operating amp would behave that way.

Now when you attempt to run a balanced amp with a single-ended source, care must be taken that the hookup is correct. Often its a good idea to make sure pin 3 and pin 1 (ground) are tied together. If this is not done, pin 3 can float and inject noise into the amplifier. This might be why we see a few weird responses in the posts above (although I would have expected that this sort of nuance would have been dealt with, but maybe not...). The Cardas adaptors we have seen do not do anything with pin 3 so they usually need some sort of attention, depending on the setup.

Martykl, its my guess its the latter rather than the former. I really doubt ARC would make an amplifier that could not manage a single-ended input!

Just a FWIW: using adapters is always tricky and should be regarded as temporary. If you are interested in getting the most out of your gear, take your cables to a tech and have him install the connector on the end of the cable such that it satisfies your needs. The mechanical connectivity of adapters can job the system of bass impact and dynamic punch- I have seen it many times.

That's probably true- unless maybe you have the manufacturer do it. FWIW though if you set up the system entirely around the idea that everything has to be sold, that *can* limit the performance you can get.

Now if the amplifier has a single-ended input, it might be moot in that application. Its my opinion that if you keep the cable short, you are probably better off using a single-ended cable than you are getting a line transformer to convert to balanced. Most transistor amplifiers have differential inputs and don't care if the input is single-ended or balanced.

However beware if the amplifier's balanced input only works if the amplifier is monostrapped. Such amps often do not have differential inputs so it makes a big difference how you drive them!