Hello, I just joined, primarily for the audiophile products. Looking at purchasing the NHT C3 speakers for our new living room. Space is about 15 feet wide by 33 long and they will fire long ways. Space is just for general listening, music room with all equipment is downstairs, so hoping they will fill it with sound nicely. Cheers.
Mar 18, 2024
Truly balanced means the amp topology is balanced, not that a single-ended signal gets split. One amp circuit for each channel. The downside is that single-ended outputs are degraded because the balanced signal has to be combined in some manner.
Balanced in DACs means something a little different -- still one line-level amp circuit for each channel but also one DAC chip for each channel (full differential balanced). DAC chips have better performance and noise specs when used in a balanced configuration.
The best: full differential / true balanced DAC -> XLR -> true balanced amp -> balanced headphones.
Quick visual guide: If an amp has more than one AC transformer it will be true balanced. If it has one transformer but the literature says its balanced, try to find assurance that it is true balanced (ie, there are secondary wingdings used off the single transformer which is a substitute for having two of them). DACs will often have two transformers but the second one is normally not used for balanced operation you'll have to find assurances in literature but if you can see more than one DAC chip than it's probably balanced.