Why Single-Ended?

Thanks Charles,

One final point. I don't mean to disparage Ralph or anyone else for promoting what he sells, well, other than the crackpot selling magic pebbles, flowers,  and clocks. Ralph's points have  basis in fact and I have no doubt he truly believes in what he promotes. But back to the bottom line... in a home environment I've never heard better than SE low powered tube amplification into highly efficient speakers.

YMMV

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/balanced-is-inherently-flawed

here's a post I started 12 years ago on the same topic. I admit I did it just to start a debate, but shows how this has been ongoing since the beginning of audio and will never be resolved

a very tired topic which has been debated ad nauseam. Ralph always beats the balanced drum as that is what he sells. Others beat the SE drum because that is what they sell, Look through the old posts and find as many of these just like this one as you want.

BTW despite what Ralph contends phono cartridges are NOT balanced as there is no ground, no ground  pin connection, only 2 lines out. 

All sound sources are single ended, compressions and refractions.

When you get to the speaker they are all single ended, they move in and out, no balance. 

There are  also a lot of misconception about balanced and differential, two related but different things.

Ayre is misleading you with "zero feedback." It is no global feedback, but all solid state designs must provide some local feedback or they will be unstable.

Bottom line, I've heard many, many, many systems and the best to me have always been highly efficient speakers driven by a minimum number of SE stages. From DAC output to speaker I have 2 tubes both SE  because I only need a few watts of power .... bliss....  It is indisputable that SE tubes operated properly are the lowest distortion (most linear) stages 

If you choose equipment based on topology versus how it sounds you will lose. It is the sound, not the implementation.

Hey Ralph, I've been gone for a few years, interesting to see the same things debated over and over and over

Lowrider, I see what you are asking

"the reason a manufacturer designs a SE component and why in today’s HiFi environment (which includes many fully-balanced components), does not offer a balanced option in their product line"

You could ask the same of Atmasphere. Why don't they offer an SET amp? The reason is they are dedicated to optimizing the topology that they are committed to. If Conrad Johnson suddenly offered a balanced amp it would make them look two faced after being adamant for all these years that SE was best. If Ralph tried to break into the SET market it would undermine his position that OTL is best. 

Why doesn't Avantgarde build speakers in boxes like Wilson? They are dedicated to and believe horns are the best solution.

Why doesn't Wilson build horn speakers? They are dedicated to and believe the speakers they build are the best solution.

Why doesn't Tesla build cars with gasoline motors? They believe electric cars are the best solution.

Thanks Almarg

if you google around you will find debate on whether a cartridge is balanced, as I see it that really doesn't matter. The important thing is how you deal with it. if you transformer couple it with a center tapped secondary then that would definitely be balanced. Of course you could take any SE source and do the same thing.

Thanks for the spell check. My point is that when the air compressions and rarefactions hit the microphone it is equivalent to a single ended source. The diaphragm vibrates back and forth. There is no equivalent diaphragm moving forth and back. Same for a speaker, the cone moves back and forth driven by a balanced or SE amp. At the end of the day does any of that matter? probably not. 

As I see it any "advantages" of balanced are outweighed in the home environment by the simplicity and linearity of an SET amplifier. At least that's what my ears tell me. 

 I will admit the only extended listing I've done to OTL amps were Atmasphere at some dealer I believe in San Jose years ago. Can't remember the name or anything else about the system except they were playing vinyl and it did sound excellent, so I get it that many would prefer it. I do remember the guy had a lot of vinyl for sale, they all smoked cigars so the place smelled foul, and the owner was an arrogant jerk, at least he was to me.

So Ralph, you have come over to the dark side with an SE preamp. There is some hope :>)

To Ralph's point about the audibility of cables; I settled on DIY CAT 5 cables as interconnects and speaker cable years ago. They are neutral configured as single ended over any practical length in the home. I encourage anyone who is on the cable merry go round to do the same and focus on things that have more impact. If you are a million dollars into your system and want to play around with mega buck cables then have fun. If you have a budget like me then cables are the last thing to spend any money on. IMHO playing with the placement of your speakers will have much more impact than cables and it is free. On the other hand, you can go with Ralph's approach and eliminate cables from the equation

However, as a DIY guy that builds his own SE amps I have the luxury of tuning the sound to my preference with the active circuits and don't have to feed the coffers of ridiculously overpriced cable makers. It is inconceivable to me that someone would pay $20,000 + for speaker cables. That tells me 2 things; PT Barnum was right and I'm in the wrong business

"But the people who are adamant that only one way is technically correct or sounds right are to be ignored. "

Surely there is best way for any individual. You and I may not agree on what is best since we may value different virtues, but having on opinion on what I find best does not mean that opinion should be ignored.

To the question about single ended versus balanced. Single ended has 2 potentials (voltages). One is fixed commonly called the ground, the return, or the reference level. The outside shield on an RCA plug. The other varies and carries the information (music) which is the center conductor.  

In balanced you have 2 lines carrying the information so typically 3 pins on the connector. Two for the signals and a third is the ground reference. In an ideal world they are exact opposites with one going positive the exact same amount as the other goes negative. The balanced circuit amplifies the difference between the two so it is differential. One advantage of that is if the cables pick up noise they tend to pick it up equally. The differential amplifier doesn't amplify the noise signals because they are not different. One debate here is if that is important in the home environment.

One approach amplifies the difference at the input and another keeps them separate until combined at the output leading to some of the terminology you asked about. 

Some circuits have a balanced 3 pin input but once inside convert it to single ended or simply don't use one of the signals and are therefore not really balanced or not fully balanced. 

Beyond that you can have combinations of the 2 like a balanced input followed by some SE amplification converted back to balanced at the output.

As Almarg points out, there is no universal agreement on what to call the various configurations so you get a variety of terms which mean different things to different people. Unless you look at the schematic and understand it you are at the mercy of whoever is describing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_amplifier
 

Balanced topology imposes twice the circuitry into the signal path.

It is not quite that simple. There are many was to implement either one so it all depends on the design. There are very complex SE circuits and very simple balanced ones. Since a differential amplifier has more gain than a comparable SE circuit you could easily end up with less stages and less circuitry. In any case the amount of circuitry is not a design criteria. If additional circuitry leads to better sound then its a good thing.

Ralph, I get that the signals in balanced can float relative to ground. I'm not knowledgable about how you  configure your circuits but I'm thinking you do not float the signal from input to output so eventually the signals do get referenced to pin one. I see what you are saying though. Balanced will work without pin one attached 

+2 ??