Balanced ----- Unbalanced----

The more information you don't loose, the better

Ralph; what "information" will be lost when using an SE connection?

As a manufacturer who builds only balanced equipment I would take Atmasphere's advice with a grain of salt.

Are XRLs unnecessary?

Yes, in a typical home application XLR connections are not needed. The only way to tell in your system is to try it.

I didn't accuse you of trying to sell anything to the guy, but as manufacturer of balanced equipment you have a vested interest in promoting that format. Someone considering SE or balanced should be aware of that.

We're not talking about 150 foot mic cables, we're talking a few feet of wire. Your concerns about noise and phase shift do not apply.

I do agree that an XLR connector is a much better device than an RCA phono jack or 1/4 inch jack

The physical connection of the XLR is better. They lock together and the contact from pin to socket is better. There is a clear standard so you can use connectors from different manufacturer's and not worry if they mate well.

There is no real standard for RCA connectors so one manufacturer's male might not mate well with another's female and vice versa. That is why some SE manufacturer's tried to move away from the RCA's, like Naim did with their DIN connectors, but it never caught on as a standard.

No one can say that they are or are not necessary in your home environment

They are not necessary in the home enviroment.

The connectors are better but the topology is not.

Ralph, we've had this conversation numerous times. Just as firmly as you believe in the benefits, I believe that the simplicity of SET and SE outweighs them in the home enviroment. I don't think either of us will be swayed by the others arguments.

I am amused by the transcontinental phone call argument. Come on, who cares how phone calls are transmitted.

The argument that the "pros use it so it must be better" holds no water either. It is a different enviroment, different equipment, different purpose. Again, it has no bearing on this discussion.

My favorite is those who say they tried their balanced equipement in SE mode and balanced sounded better; therefore balanced is inherently better than SE. A ridiculous conclusion. It sounds better because they are using it in the manner it was designed to be used. If you try to run a late 60's muscle car on unleaded gas it won't perform well. These people would conclude that leaded gas is better than unleaded when the truth is the engines were designed for leaded, so they work better with leaded.

I do truly believe that you believe and practice what you preach, but if Conrad or Johnson got on here and started preaching the superiority of SE we would have to take that with a grain of salt too.

How can you dismiss the benefits of common mode noise rejection?

How much noise can you pick up in a few feet of cable?

The benefit is that you can use a cheap cable to the same effect as a really expensive cable- effectively eliminating a cost in your system. That's not something you can say about SE cables!

So why do I see ultra expensive balanced cables as well as SE cables? I can make you an SE cable from magnet wire or a twisted pair of CAT5 cable that works as well as the expensive SE cable.

Herman, before balanced line occurred, you had to scream at the top of your lungs to make a call across the state

Once again, who cares what the phone company uses.

In our amps, which are balanced, there is one.

I have no access to the schematics of your amps, but I believe in order to do this you have many tubes in parallel which presents it's own problems. There is no free lunch.

Its not better because the pros use it, the pros use it because it works better.

Exactly, it works better in a very noisy studio enviroment with pro audio equipment when you are trying to record very low level signals. A situation that is never repeated at home.

It is better for that application butI don't have any transcontinental phone lines in my listening room. I also don't have any noise with 107dB speakers.

We're going in circles.