2. amps-preamps
  3. 187685-154981

Are luxman integrated amps truly balanced?

Hello,

I have the Luxman L-507z integrated amp. Sounds excellent. There are 2 line inputs on the back that are listed as balanced inputs (XLR). My DAC has balanced outputs (holoaudio spring 3 kte). Am I wasting my time and money getting good xlr cables? Also the DAC puts out 5.8volts. The XLR inputs (according to Luxman) can handle up to 6volts. Using RCA outputs/inputs the DAC puts out 2.9volts and the amp can handle up to 9 volts. Am I in danger of harming my amp using XLR ? The DAC has no volume control. The cable run is very short...3 feet.

paqua123
paqua123 OP
48 posts
 

Shrug, I havent found it warm at all. Pretty dang neutral and clean. So maybe it's what it's being fed that matters. I'm using a holoaudio DAC. 

mm1tt77
127 posts
 

It’s too simplistic to say unbalanced or balanced interconnects sound better.  It’s all about the design of the gear and synergy.  I’ve had gear where I hear no difference or unbalanced sounds better but I have had gear that throughout the chain, it’s all been designed to sound it’s best balanced and all the pieces are truly balanced.  I have seen a noticeable sound quality bump on balanced gear that’s designed to be used balanced and truly balanced.  
 

Most of the time it’s easy to tell if gear is truly balanced as the manufacture goes out of their way to call that out, as already pointed out in this thread, a truly, fully balanced piece is more expensive to design and implement.  The manufacture wants you to know.  
 

Let your ears be your guide, good luck. 

aberyclark
1,355 posts
 

I have compared balanced and RCA cables on a couple of systems and I cannot tell a difference. My Yamaha studio monitors are quite nisy using RCA cables. Balanced cables make them quite as a mouse. Maybe because the Yamahas are close to my two monitors that cause the noise

paqua123 OP
48 posts
 

I have some nice RCA cables coming next week. Nothing crazy expensive but on par with the XLR i have. So we shall see. In the mean time has anyone tried inline attentuators to lower voltage output

mspot
113 posts
 

 XLR carries a hot signal on one conductor and an inverted hot signal on another conductor.  A diff amp compares the two signals and amplifies the difference.  A +5 volt compared to -5 volt is a difference of 10 volts.  That's the 6 dB gain.

There should be no gain if Luxman followed the AES48 XLR interface standard, so apparently they do not follow AES48. Read the posts by @atmasphere (Ralph Karsten) in this thread:
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/when-to-choice-xlr-over-rca-ics
The consequence of not following AES48 is that some of the benefits of using balanced interconnects are lost. However, XLRs may still provide some benefit and you'll need to compare it with using RCA on your system.

More to discover