Single Ended DAC vs Dual Differential XLR DAC

Thanks for your replies!

@lordmelton , I'm not referring to dual mono. The Single Ended RCA DAC I'm considering is the MHDT Pagoda ( http://www.mhdtlab.com/Pagoda.htm ) and the dual differential XLR DAC is its brother MHDT Balanced Pagoda ( http://www.mhdtlab.com/Pagoda%20balanced.htm ).

The Balanced Pagoda simply has 2x PCM1704 DAC's per channel in order to obtain the negative and positive portions of the XLR signal while the unbalanced Pagoda simply has 1x PCM1704 per channel for just the positive signal.

Now that I'm playing with an open hand...do you think the Balanced Pagoda to be superior to the Pagoda? Or the dual DAC for the negative and positive portions of the XLR signal could decrease signal accuracy? I think about tolerances that make a chip never identical to another leading to a slightly "smeared" signal.

It's the old story of single ended RCA considered simpler and someway better than XLR by someone while others say exactly the opposite.

Eventually, I own an RCA Pagoda, should I take a Balanced Pagoda with no chance to test it before buying?

Thank you for your help!

Gianluca

@soix Thank you very much for directing me to the Teajay review of the Balanced Pagoda that's the heart of my mental devices these days! He claims the Balanced Pagoda is magic precisely because it's balanced that way and the RCA outputs don't sound equally well. The RCA outputs of the Balanced Pagoda should be comparable to an unbalanced Pagoda. It's a great indication, thank you!

@lordmelton I've listened to the Sonnet Morpheus MK2 R2R DAC that's one of the best regarded XLR DAC's today and I think it has monster resolution but it largely misses the magic (again!) of the BurrBrown PCM1704 + buffer output tube of the MHDT Pagoda. I've just listened to the unbalanced Pagoda. You're perfectly right about good cables!

At present I'm moving towards the Balanced Pagoda thanks to Teajay's rave review...

Gianluca

I often like a lot what Amirm of audiosciencereview.com REJECTS in his tests 😄 It's happening again in spectacular fashion for the Pagoda! He'd throw it in the trash (and I'll buy it)

Gianluca