bingo.
put a new tip on my iron and resoldered everything. old tip was shot and getting just warm enough to melt the solder into perfect cold joints.
balanced, in general, is worth under 2 conditions:
- you have proper balanced source(s), not one inherently SE with just glued on circ for negative phase
-you prefer sound with dominant odd harmonics
to simplify - if you had opportunity to hear balanced system somewhere and you like it - go for it
simplify attempt 2 - if you have opportunity and eagerness, build what's needed, try in both SE and Bal, choose what you like more
- you have proper balanced source(s), not one inherently SE with just glued on circ for negative phase
-you prefer sound with dominant odd harmonics
to simplify - if you had opportunity to hear balanced system somewhere and you like it - go for it
simplify attempt 2 - if you have opportunity and eagerness, build what's needed, try in both SE and Bal, choose what you like more
As ZM posted...
Perhaps one small addition to that...
In fact balanced lines have been developed to minimise line cables electrical interferences/noise due mostly to environmental electromagnetic pollution (balanced lines cancel most out). But in my experience, unless you run line cables over 10m (and then you need a serious output stage to drive them usualy!) as it is indeed the case in pro applications, or you have an exceptional noisy environment or very very sensitive signals, both rather rare in home HIFI applications (even the sensitive MC sources can do without XLR if properly shielded), it isn't worth bothering with. The exception being natural balanced MC sources... perhaps.
I use RCA non balanced all the way and never head an issue, even with some SMPS or comuters being sometimes only 2m away. Just my experience.
I hope this helps
Claude
Perhaps one small addition to that...
In fact balanced lines have been developed to minimise line cables electrical interferences/noise due mostly to environmental electromagnetic pollution (balanced lines cancel most out). But in my experience, unless you run line cables over 10m (and then you need a serious output stage to drive them usualy!) as it is indeed the case in pro applications, or you have an exceptional noisy environment or very very sensitive signals, both rather rare in home HIFI applications (even the sensitive MC sources can do without XLR if properly shielded), it isn't worth bothering with. The exception being natural balanced MC sources... perhaps.
I use RCA non balanced all the way and never head an issue, even with some SMPS or comuters being sometimes only 2m away. Just my experience.
I hope this helps
Claude
