Transparent Interconnect Question....

i would call transparent, be specific about what you're connecting to what, and let them provide the answer. in my case, i have a rowland consumate preamp, and because jrdg strongly encourages the use of the balanced inputs due to the fully balanced circuit design, i got a pair of trsp bal.ref (w/mm tech) to connect my dac (m.lev 360s) to the preamp.
and it does sound very very good.
as for the (very) confusing trsp. model designations, it goes like this- 1.ultra 2.ref 3.ref xl 4. ref mm 5.opus.
simply state "current production" which implies all have "mm" technology. "old" trsp cable unfortunately is not as good as the new stuff imho. my wild guess/answer to your question- get ultra bal- current production.

I've used Transparent Ultra Balanced, Ref with XL Balanced and now Ref with MM RCA.

From my experience, the improvement from Ultra to Ref with XL was very obvious. Less so from Ref with XL to Ref with MM.

Although the above did not point to a definite comparison result, but I would imagine a model line upgrade would be better than the change from RCA to Balanced within the same line?

BTW I am using fully balanced gears.

nsgarch, I can't imagion were you came up with your explaination of an input SE stage, it just isn't true.

Most of your other points seem "made-up" too.

As an example, if you take a balanced connection and just connect the pos or neg leg to ground, everything would work fine without the mumbo jumbo you describe. That is basically a SE connection.

steve

oh, the main benefit to balanced connections is that the grounds are isolated between equipment.

steve

rats, the situation you refer to is one where the Bal and SE jacks are internally wired together. A typical example are amplifiers that have both Bal and SE inputs, but to use the SE, you need to install a jumper clip into the XLR jack, usually between ground and the XLR's negative hot pin. This is because the RCA hot is connected internally to the plus hot of the XLR while the RCA neg is connected internally to the neg hot of the XLR. The jumper connects the RCA neg to circuit ground in order to make the SE input work. Only now, you are definitely driving only half of the amp's input circuitry with signal.

So you are right, in that you don't HAVE to have an inverter at the input, but then the relative benefits of using the Bal inputs just increase.