Been there, done that, many times. When comparing unbalanced vs balanced connections, I much prefer the total background blackness and lack of noise. Without the background grain, detail and resolution is greatly increased to my ears. To gain the "musicaliy" related to even order harmonics, I use tubed sources, and in spite of your claim that balanced connections eliminate this, I can easily hear the difference between a tube stage output on a player and an SS one.

After years of searching and testing gear, this is the sound that I like best. YMMV.

BTW, FYI... here is a pic of my Universal Multichannel Music Player.


The sub(.1)channel is upgraded but (not tube driven) remains SS.

That's the best part about all of this. There's a combination for everybody's tastes!

Have you actually measured the amount of noise in your system to determine the nature of your problem? Maybe that "blackness" can be achieved by much less drastic means than balanced ciruits. It's far better to avoid noise in a system by good gain structure, good cable routing, and power line filtering when needed than to use balanced audio circuits as a band-aid.

The tube circuitry you mention actually illistrates my point about simplicity. Tube circuits are vastly simpler than their solid state counterparts, are more linear in their native state and as a result they do not require anywhere near the amount of negative feedback that typical solid state gear does. However even a fully balanced tube circuit will cancel the even order harmonic distortion products, which totally defeats the purpose of using tubes in the first place.

I have an old Audio Research tube power amplifier that is fully balanced, and it sounds much inferior to less expensive but simpler unbalanced tube amps I have.

The single ended triode amplifier that I use to drive my high frequency horns has an extremely simple circuit that uses no global negative feedback - it only has two tubes per channel and a few resistors and capacitors. It sounds wonderful as a result.

What problem? I never view sonic improvements in my system as eleviating a problem, but merely, as a gradual process of improvement taking place over time.

Obviously, you don't know me very well. I've had dozens of amps, preamps and sources and this system as it exists is the one which sounds best to me, due primarily to its' total lack of background noise and its' neutrality. They allow me to alter my sources to get the sound I prefer.

Those are givens/basics, not solutions, IMO. You also need to include room conditioning/treatments as well.

Not a band aid by any means to me. They are but one piece to a sonic puzzle which I prefer. YMMV.

Moonhawk: I have a Blue Diamond amp, and it is fantastic! You won't be sorry if you get one.

I am strongly considering getting an Outlaw 990 as the pre-pro to pair with the Gemstone. I am currently using an Integra receiver (DTR 9.1) as the front-end of my system, but it can't do everything the 990 can (or will, when they are here).

What are you taking about? You CANNOT have a balanced "signal" on RCA's. To say or even suggest a balanced signal may be going down an RCA is obsurd and laughable at best. IT SIMPLY CANNOT. There aren't enough wires in an RCA to support "balanced".

XLR's have TWO wires for signal transmission and a third wire for reference whereas an RCA has ONE for signal and ONE for reference.

The "balancing" is typically nothing more then a op-amp which creates a copy of the signal with the phase shifted 180 degrees.

There are TWO signals going down the XLR - The normal one and the copied inverted one. From those two signals it is very easer to detect distortion on the receving end - differences are rejected.

What are you taking about? You CANNOT have a balanced "signal" on RCA's. To say or even suggest a balanced signal may be going down an RCA is obsurd and laughable at best. IT SIMPLY CANNOT. There aren't enough wires in an RCA to support "balanced".

XLR's have TWO wires for signal transmission and a third wire for reference whereas an RCA has ONE for signal and ONE for reference.

The "balancing" is typically nothing more then a op-amp which creates a copy of the signal with the phase shifted 180 degrees.

There are TWO signals going down the XLR - The normal one and the copied inverted one. From those two signals it is very easer to detect distortion on the receving end.

All electronics stages generate some amount of noise. The more stages there are, the more noise gets added. There is no such thing as an absolutely noise free piece of electronic equipment - at least until room temperature super conductors are perfected. The most noise free preamp is a completely passive one, with no active electronics stages at all, but even this is not totally noise free.


Sounds like somebody's marketing department has been feeding you some bad information.

Actually, I have used RCAs for balanced circuits - the only thing is that they have to be isolated electrically from the component's chassis. A balanced line comprises two conductors: a ground reference is not necessary. Therefore a two conductor jack (if you count the shell, which is normally grounded in an unbalanced circuit) such as an RCA or BNC can be used, again, as long as it's shell is not in contact with a grounded chassis.