A phono cartridge is actually an inherently balanced design - it has a separate hot for left and right, separate grounds for each, and a shield. That makes phono connections ideal for balanced phono preamps, because a truly balanced (differential) phono preamp will have higher gain and lower noise than a single-ended preamp, all other things being equal. Please note that you can have a balanced phono connection using RCA connectors; it's the circuit, not the connectors, that make it balanced.
Xor or single ended?
Hi Goners!
I am sure this has been gone over but i seemed to have missed finding it...
What is preferred...A single ended tonearm cable to an orca phono input or a xor balanced termination tonearm to a balanced xor phono input?
Please, if you answer i would appreciate having solid reasoning as opposed to one"s own preferences...
I very much thank all for helping me understand.
Azjake
I am sure this has been gone over but i seemed to have missed finding it...
What is preferred...A single ended tonearm cable to an orca phono input or a xor balanced termination tonearm to a balanced xor phono input?
Please, if you answer i would appreciate having solid reasoning as opposed to one"s own preferences...
I very much thank all for helping me understand.
Azjake
Showing 4 responses by cleeds
azjake OP243 posts" My preamp is fully balanced but the tone arms were mistakenly made with s. E. Terminations!" Does the pickup arm have a separate ground wire, as is common? If so, you can use a multimeter to check if there is continuity between the ground wire and audio ground, which is probably the outer parts of the RCA connectors. If there's no continuity, your RCA cables are not really single-ended. |
lewm4,763 posts02-02-2016 3:08pm"cleeds
is basically correct but not entirely correct. The coil in the
cartridge has two free ends; I think we can easily agree on that. When
you use the cartridge in single-ended mode, one end is connected to the
hot pin or the hot female input of the RCA connection, and the other is
connected to audio ground via the collar of the male RCA jack or the
sleeve on an RCA input jack. However, when you hook up a cartridge in
balanced mode, there is no audio ground connection; each end of the
cartridge is attached to one of 3 pins in the XLR, typically pins 2 and
3." I think you misread what I wrote. Please note - as I tried to make clear - that you can connect a phono cartridge in balanced mode using RCA connectors and a separate ground wire; that keeps the shield separate from the audio ground. There's nothing magic or inherently balanced about XLR connectors themselves, even though they are almost always used in balanced mode. |
pbnaudio "Its
generally not recommendable to hook up a fully balanced phono system
with RCA connectors because the negative node is thereby fully exposed
on the barrel of the RCA connector i.e. not shielded ..." If the phono preamp and line stage preamp are truly fully balanced (differential) amplifiers, then it won't matter. That's the whole point of using balanced amplification. If the "balanced" preamp uses op-amps at its input and doesn't itself operate in differential mode, then using RCA connectors might be a compromise. |