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  #51  
Old 11-20-2017, 12:20 PM
mulveling mulveling is offline
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Tried the Balanced out of the Bryston BHA-1 this morning with the new Moon Audio Black Dragon cables for my Sennheiser HD600 and 650.

Immediate increase in perceived resolution and dynamics. Both pairs sound more open and airy with higher perceived sense of resolution and increase in dynamic drive and slam. Bass is tighter and more resolved. Not a trace of hardness or grain.

It's like going from a very good amplifier to a great one. Essentially this is what going Balanced with the Bryston BHA-1 is. I'll give the new cables some time to burn in and get used to the new and improved sound and do some SE vs Balanced comparisons via the BHA-1.
Yep, that's what you should be hearing! There's really no reason to avoid balanced drive in SS headphone amps, past a certain level, and even the very affordable HD600/650 improve immensely from it. Enjoy

In a hifi world gone crazy, the HD600/650 with a balanced SS amp, XLR cable, and good value balanced DAC (e.g. Yggy, Gumby?) gives a ton of high fidelity sound for the money.

Last edited by mulveling; 11-20-2017 at 12:30 PM.
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  #52  
Old 11-20-2017, 12:29 PM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
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Yep, that's what you should be hearing! There's really no reason to avoid balanced drive in SS headphone amps, past a certain level, and even the very affordable HD600/650 improve immensely from it. Enjoy
I kept hearing people say that the Sennheiser HD6xx series scales up nicely with the better cables and amplification (to a point). Well I can definitely agree with that statement now. The Balanced drive of the Schiit Gungnir Multibit DAC to Balanced Bryston BHA-1 with the Moon Black Dragon Balanced Cables opens up the Senns to new heights. It's like listening to a new pair of headphones now. Ok, they have not reached the level of the Focal Elear or Utopia but man, they sound so much better now. Same smooth tonal balance but with an increase in dynamics and resolution. I can see myself spending much more time with the HD6xx pair.
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  #53  
Old 11-27-2017, 01:05 PM
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I kept hearing people say that the Sennheiser HD6xx series scales up nicely with the better cables and amplification (to a point). Well I can definitely agree with that statement now. The Balanced drive of the Schiit Gungnir Multibit DAC to Balanced Bryston BHA-1 with the Moon Black Dragon Balanced Cables opens up the Senns to new heights. It's like listening to a new pair of headphones now. Ok, they have not reached the level of the Focal Elear or Utopia but man, they sound so much better now. Same smooth tonal balance but with an increase in dynamics and resolution. I can see myself spending much more time with the HD6xx pair.
I like the Senn's as well. What cable did you compare the balanced Moon Audio to?
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  #54  
Old 11-27-2017, 01:44 PM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
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I like the Senn's as well. What cable did you compare the balanced Moon Audio to?
Nothing but the stock cable and Black Dragon in the recent times. Dragons are good. I was surprised to hear such a difference but I assume the biggest difference is the balanced drive of Bryston BHA-1 since the Dragons are balanced and BHA-1 puts out twice the voltage to each driver in balanced mode.
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Old 11-29-2017, 02:27 PM
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Nothing but the stock cable and Black Dragon in the recent times. Dragons are good. I was surprised to hear such a difference but I assume the biggest difference is the balanced drive of Bryston BHA-1 since the Dragons are balanced and BHA-1 puts out twice the voltage to each driver in balanced mode.
If the spirit moves you, order another Black Dragon cable in single ended of equal length. Taking care to PRECISELY match levels when switching between cables (may need an SPL meter to do so), see if you hear a difference between balanced and single ended using the same amp.

Many people prefer the balanced. Not surprising since hardly anyone ever corrects for volume differences. If the balanced output is louder (which it often is due to the higher voltage you mentioned), then it will sound "fuller" with greater bass, soundstage depth, detail, etc. An easy psychoacoustic trap to fall into.

Another reason I see for the preference of balanced...comparing a well designed balanced cable to the relatively poor stock cable. Rarely have I seen a comparison when both the single ended and balanced cables were the same thing.

I did the test above with the Sennheisers. Agree that they scale tremendously well with better cables and amplification. Amazing, actually. But when corrected for volume and all variables are the same (cable type and length), I couldn't tell much if any difference between balanced and single ended.

I also agree that in theory there are electrical benefits in going balanced, but I am not sure how well this translates to real world listening. In my experience, not much.

Just for thought...I was writing a review of the McIntosh headphone amplifier and contacted Mac to answer some questions. One of mine was why Mac did not offer balanced headphone outputs on a high end and relatively expensive headphone amplifier. Their answer...having balanced did not affect sound quality and was therefore not needed. Interesting.

I have heard it said that balanced headphone amplifiers are just a way for amp makers to charge more for the amp and get greater profit. Perhaps.
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  #56  
Old 11-29-2017, 04:00 PM
mulveling mulveling is offline
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The 6dB gain from balanced drive is huge, and obvious to headphone listeners with any experience. Of course it has to be adjusted for. The sonic differences I've noticed, regardless of volume, are significant; some amps more than others. In particular, the 2006 Headroom Maxed Home and Ray Samuels Apache showed a striking improvement in balanced mode; their SE modes were very mediocre, if not disappointing. There were rumors the Ray Samuels amp circuits were based off an older Headroom Home design, so it's not surprising they behaved similarly in this regard.

Some headphones also benefit more or less from balanced drive. For example, the ATH-L3000 "Leatherhead" benefits some from balanced drive, but not as much as the Sennheiser HD600/650/800, which have always been particularly responsive to balanced drive.

And then cables. I've compared many kinds, both SE and balanced, on the Sennhieser HD600/650. The differences here are generally MUCH more subtle than those between amps, or between SE/balanced. But the Zu Mobius is a single exception -- and I've owned a few copies over the years, both SE and XLR. This cable significantly alters the tonality of the headphones.

Balanced, done right, will double the amp's slew rate, reject common mode noise (lower noise floor), and reduce distortion. So for "all out assault" headphone systems, it's almost always the right choice. And anyways, electrostatic headphones absolutely require balanced drive, and they're the best headphones

Last edited by mulveling; 11-29-2017 at 04:04 PM.
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  #57  
Old 11-29-2017, 05:54 PM
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Of course I try to level match as close as possible when I am comparing SE vs Balanced.

I just received a pair of Black Dragons with the Furutech XLR connector for the Focal Utopia and I immediately heard a substantial difference in dynamic contrast, transparency and an even blacker background. The Utopia was already a very resolving instrument for deep listening and the Black Dragons in Balanced lifted yet another veil. It is simply amazing how black the background is and on some of the better recordings I can hear even deeper into the soundstage and all the micro details emerge with more clarity.

Of the three headphone amps, I only have the Balanced on my Bryston BHA-1 amp so far. So I still can not say definitively if it is the cables or balanced mode itself but if with the Sennheisers I would have believed the stock cables leave something on the table but the Sennheisers in balanced were a huge step up in performance.

I seriously do not think this is the case with the Focal Utopia stock cables. I think they are quite good from the factory which leaves the Bryston BHA-1 which is truly balanced with push pull of the 2 amps for each channel/driver for a total of 4. Yes, the Black Dragons may in fact be better than the stock Utopia cables as well, I can not discount that fact and/or it could be some mix of both factors involved but I really don't care. The end result is, The Utopia and BHA-1 Balanced sounds freaking AWESOME.

Last edited by PHC1; 11-29-2017 at 05:57 PM.
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  #58  
Old 11-30-2017, 03:26 PM
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I have some experience with single ended vs. balanced that I think at least indirectly applies to headphone amps. So here goes.

My first McIntosh amplifier was an MC 2102 - a 100 wpc stereo amp that can also be run as a monoblock in either mono parallel mode or mono bridged mode. I ended up getting two, and experimenting with the parallel and bridged mono modes.

In mono parallel, the sound didn't really change. In mono bridged, magic happened. The distortion dropped dramatically and the clarity, soundstaging, and punch increased. It was like a completely different amplifier, and all to for the better.

I ended up replacing the two MC 2102's with two MC 2301's. This is what McIntosh had to say about this balanced amplifier:

From the web:
"The MC2301 is the first McIntosh vacuum tube amplifier to use our Quad Balanced design. This design cancels virtually all noise and distortion in the audio signal. As a result, even when amplified to high levels the signal is effectively free of any distortion."

From the manual:
"The fully Balanced Push-Pull design is used from input to output. The resulting fully balanced configuration cancels many forms of audible distortion and greatly improves the Signal-to-Noise ratio of the amplifier"

Interesting.....

Tom
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