This started out as a PM to Ben . . .

SolidSqual

Hey Ben,

Got the cables today. Interestingly with the addition of your cables my noise floor dropped further (which was to be expected) but my preamplifier gain seemed to have increased. Listening to bands like Tool I rocked it out at 65-70 according to the dial on my preamp. Now, 50 is frickin loud as ****. This is awesome. I have so much more headroom. I wonder if this is a result of the BAT design. Have you heard of this before?

Mike

Early B.

Very cool.

SS -- what brand of cables did you replace?

SolidSqual

Early B. wrote: »

Very cool.

SS -- what brand of cables did you replace?

The one's by Frank Dai, the other great guy who services tons of Polkies here with excellent service and lightning fast turnaround.

Part of the reason my noise floor dropped noticeably is the switch from RCA/XLR to complete balanced.

ben62670

Tonight my friend Jerry was over and we were listening to his custom SDA's. We hooked up the Denon 2900 SACD player to check it out. The SDA effect was totally gone. I had some spare AR IC's there just to hook it up. At first we thought the Speakers were messed up with something wired wrong. We swapped in my IC's and it was back. Also I have the option of running my DAC at 2vrms out, or 4.5vrms. With my cables, and the DAC's voltage set high the SDA effect was in full effect.
Ben

SolidSqual

I knew all that torched skin and plasma would make these cables sing. So what the hell is the big secret? Any idea why the cables had the effect they did? I've been A and Bing back and forth because my CDP does has both Single Ended and Balanced outputs and the volume is definitely way less with the Signal RCAs.

ben62670

SolidSqual wrote: »

I knew all that torched skin and plasma would make these cables sing. So what the hell is the big secret? Any idea why the cables had the effect they did?

Still scratching my head. I have the Demo MIT's here for a couple more days. I want to see how they effect the SDA's.

ShinAce

If you're switching between unbalanced to balanced outputs at the same output voltage(same level), there's your answer. That's a 3dB voltage gain on the balanced, or 6dB power wise. It will sound roughly twice as loud.

There's no headroom gain. You're just running the amp harder in balanced.

hoosier21

ShinAce wrote: »

If you're switching between unbalanced to balanced outputs at the same output voltage(same level), there's your answer. That's a 3dB voltage gain on the balanced, or 6dB power wise. It will sound roughly twice as loud.

There's no headroom gain. You're just running the amp harder in balanced.

my guess also

SolidSqual

ShinAce wrote: »

If you're switching between unbalanced to balanced outputs at the same output voltage(same level), there's your answer. That's a 3dB voltage gain on the balanced, or 6dB power wise. It will sound roughly twice as loud.

There's no headroom gain. You're just running the amp harder in balanced.

Ahh makes total sense. I forgot about that change. Thanks!

heiney9

ShinAce wrote: »

If you're switching between unbalanced to balanced outputs at the same output voltage(same level), there's your answer. That's a 3dB voltage gain on the balanced, or 6dB power wise. It will sound roughly twice as loud.

There's no headroom gain. You're just running the amp harder in balanced.

Yep, most differential balanced amps have (2) different input impedance's for RCA and XLR connections. You need to compare apples to apples to get the correct info to your question.

Now if the XLR connection is just bridged and not truly balanced the input impedance might be the same or close for both inputs.

reeltrouble1

I believe someone said.

Balanced trumps unbalanced.

The BAT has a high input impedance, off the top 90-100 K, as you move along the path a stop with a BAT amp and pre would likely be a comfortable place to be.

RT1

billbillw

Its pretty common for the balanced circuits to have more overall gain than the single ended. I found the same thing with my Parasound setup. Its not really more headroom. Just more gain. Like Shin Ace said, you're just pushing the amp harder. With my Parasound gear, I ended up having to use the single ended because the balanced had too much gain and it gave me very little range of volume control.