Unbalaned to Balanced

Hi Vinyl,
No difference. In fact, a lot of amps don't have truly balanced inputs. They ground the (-) pin. It's there for convenience.

Lots of pro amps did this, because in a studio balanced cables are the norm. 
Best,
E

@erik_squires

I have just bought a ATI AT524NC power amp. I have not received it yet.
RCA. And. XLR inputs.
where do I have to look to know if that amp is truly balanced ?
In the specification ?
thanks

Hey,

If they are based on the Hypex modules, they are true balanced inputs. :) But there's no benefit to using a balanced cable with a single ended source.

Best,
E

I was in the process of upgrading and testing equipment.

Allnic L5000 DHT to Allnic L10,000 OTL/OCL (no capacitor, no transformer)

The signal fed a Allnic A6000 300b monoblock with both balanced and unbalanced inputs.  However, the amps are single ended, unbalanced circuit design.  I had run balanced because of the 35' run to the amps.  When I switched to the new preamp, the balanced output of the L10,000 required the use of an internal quality transformer.  Notably, that transformer removed the magic the linestage preamp offered.  So I sold my cable off for unbalanced solution and it was the single best move ever.

In conclusion, I reach out to the manufacturer of each component regarding circuit design and if the upstream component is true balanced circuit design, then I used balanced cable and ideally components downstream that also have true balanced circuit design.  

In this case, I did the opposite.  Everything from DAC to amps were unbalanced.  

How can someone say balanced doesn’t make a difference? Also, who cares if some amps only have rca connections? It’s irrelevant. If the equipment is truly balanced, use balanced. Balanced cables have better connectors, support much longer length, and is less noisy.