Balanced or single ended phono stage?

Listen to Atmosphere on the advantages of balanced designs. I have no connection to him but I have been using balanced systems for a long time and I am a believer.

Not to say single ended equipment can't sound better in a scheme of things. System dependent.

Having owned the Ayre P-5x it is a very good reasonably priced phono pre.

Its a true balanced input to output unit. That is vs some units that add balanced circuitry at the end, an extra stage at the end of single ended design. Not the way to do it.

The Ayre P-5xe is nice in that you can use the RCA single ended input and still take advantage of the balanced input. Just flip the bal/single ended switch to balanced. There is a slight difference in signal path but I verified with Ayre that both sides of the signal get to the diff input though there is a slight difference in signal path length which should not matter for practical purpose.

I used it as I described and also with the proper xlr input with the same tone arm, a Tri planar VII, which I had converted from RCA to XLR. Did not notice a difference!

Great unit. For me it took a major step up in price to better it.

ASR Basis Exclusive offers both single ended and balanced ins and outs. The sound is far superior using the balanced ins and the RCA outs. It just depends I think on your system and the phono stage. Since it's easy to try balance ins, I always give it a shot when the pre offers both. It's usually, but not always better.

Great responses everyone, I appreciate the feedback.......of course an in home demo would be the best. You read just a ton of excellent things about the Manley Chinook which is pretty much the same price as the Ayre, yet it has quite a few more options but is single ended. Same goes for the Ayre which is balanced of course. Maybe it's a matter of tube vs. solid state, which will affect my system in ways I have no idea. I haven't purchased the table yet, but will most likely go with the VPI Classic 2 or 3. I suppose I could buy both to demo......figure it wouldn't be too hard to sell the one I decided against. As of right now I've got a slightly warmer McIntosh based system with sightly cooler Avalons.....so I figure an analog setup will put my room into audio nirvana. Demoing the table at home this weekend. Can't wait. If I go off the wealth of internet feedback, you'd think that the Manley is the way to go.

^^Its not a matter of tube vs solid state! A balanced solid state unit has a better chance of sounding like music than a single-ended circuit, the same is true of balanced tube preamps.

Balanced line operation is simply a better way of handling cables, and if the circuit is balanced differential, then its a better way of processing the signal as well.

The signal path of a balanced differential circuit can be as simple as single-ended circuits. For example our preamps have only three stages of gain between the LOMC input and the line state output (in the case of our MP-1 that line stage can drive headphones directly, yet we are still talking about only three stages of gain from the stylus on the LP). Now it is true that there are more parts but it is not true that there are double the parts- that depends on the design.

Tdaudio: " The Ayre P-5xe is nice in that you can use the RCA single ended input and still take advantage of the balanced input. Just flip the bal/single ended switch to balanced. There is a slight difference in signal path but I verified with Ayre that both sides of the signal get to the diff input though there is a slight difference in signal path length which should not matter for practical purpose.

I used it as I described and also with the proper xlr input with the same tone arm, a Tri planar VII, which I had converted from RCA to XLR. Did not notice a difference!"

Interesting! I would think that you would, at a minimum, sacrifice the 6db of noise reduction by using single ended interconnects in the signal path.

From the K-1xe owners manual:

"As the phono cartridge is an inherently balanced device, the phono stage is also balanced, using XLR jacks at the input. This configuration yields maximum sonic performance with minimum noise and hum. Since most tone arms and/or turntables are not equipped with XLR connectors, there are two choices for making the proper connection:
1) Use an RCA-to-XLR adapter. This often may be the easiest solution to implement, but introduces an extra set of contacts into the signal path. In addition, this converts the balanced input into an unbalanced input and causes a slight loss of sound quality.
2) Use dedicated cables with XLR connectors at the preamplifier end and the appropriate connector (RCA or DIN, depending on the particular installation) at the turntable end. This is the preferred solution and offers the highest level of sound quality."

Tdaudio, I am not challenging your experience, but genuinely curious: was your XLR cable configured per one of the schematics on this link from the Ayre website:

http://www.ayre.com/acc_phono_schematics.htm#phrca

Perhaps the balanced/single ended switching function on the P-5xe that you describe explains your results since there is no such feature on the K-1xe?

Thanks,
Dave