Tube pre-amps: balanced a big deal?

Thanks cousinbillyl, good insight.

Even better is no crossover at all. The Eminent Technology LFT-8b uses two paralleled push-pull magnetic-planar drivers for the 180Hz-10kHz range---no crossover!

Balanced is great for long, long runs, otherwise for typical in home usage you wont notice anything else besides the free 6db gain.

This statement is problematic. Many balanced systems don't give you any extra gain. The real reason that balanced operation can be attractive is that the balanced line system was devised to eliminate interconnect colorations. If you've ever had to audition a cable or happen to have heard one sound better than another you know what I'm talking about.

What if you could have cheap cables that sounded as good as the very best cables which can cost over $1000/foot? Balanced operation is how you make that happen. The trick is that the equipment has to support the balanced standard, otherwise known as AES file 48. Many 'high end audio' components do not, which means that you may not realize all the benefits of going balanced. Balanced is worth it- once you've heard a balanced system properly set up, there's no going back, but Buy Beware...

Ralph, what is the AES standard, again? Which signal on which pins, etc? Thanks---Eric.

“The trick is that the equipment has to support the balanced standard, otherwise known as AES file 48. Many 'high end audio' components do not, which means that you may not realize all the benefits of going balanced.”

Spot on as usual.

Kenny.