The New Hypex Fusion Plate amps

On a balanced setup you have 3 wires connecting equipment. Hot, cold and ground, IE signal, polarity switched signal and ground.
It almost seems like you are suggesting one should connect gnd to either hot or cold input and the unbalanced signal to the other?
That does not sound like a good solution to me, not with a circuit designed for balanced connection.

If you are talking about using a differential input opamp together with a unbalanced signal only, yes you can do that. But then you are not using the same circuit, and you do not get the same benefits.

You can connect the unbalanced signal to either hot or cold, and gnd to gnd, but not much noise cancelling.
 
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On a balanced setup you have 3 wires connecting equipment. Hot, cold and ground, IE signal, polarity switched signal and ground.


Yes and no. You have two wires conducting the signal. Ground can be connected or not, it doesn't matter for the signal. The signal is not referenced to ground.


It almost seems like you are suggesting one should connect gnd to either hot or cold input and the unbalanced signal to the other?
Yes, exactly. That is how a differential input works.



I suggest looking at connection #17 in this: Rane Note 110: Sound System Interconnection - AVW


If you are talking about using a differential input opamp together with a unbalanced signal only, yes you can do that. But then you are not using the same circuit, and you do not get the same benefits.
You get almost all of the benefits if the cable (connection) is balanced. There will be an impedance unbalance that will make it less than perfect, but still almost as good as with a symmetric source.
 
There's also this:
Other designers, upgrading to balanced interconnections, may have realized that by connecting the shield to signal ground, interfacing to unbalanced equipment is made simpler since signal ground (needed for unbalanced interconnection) will be available on the cable. (This unfortunately allows easy use of 1/4" mono connectors.) This still creates the same problem, signal-grounded balanced shields. Signal-grounded shields on balanced equipment create ground loops in the audio path and modulate the audio signal ground, wreaking havoc with most systems. This practice penalizes those who want to realize the superior performance of balanced interconnections and has given balancing a bad reputation.

RANE Commercial - Knowledge Base

"Balanced and unbalanced systems are not designed to interface together directly."


If you want to quote Rane notes, I advise you to link to the Rane knowledge base instead.
Here's Ranenote 110 again:
RANE Commercial - Knowledge Base

They sum it up like so:
Winning the Wiring Wars
- Use balanced connections whenever possible, with the shield bonded to the metal chassis at both ends.
- Transformer isolate all unbalanced connections from balanced connections.
- Use special cable assemblies when unbalanced lines cannot be transformer isolated.
- Any unbalanced cable must be kept under ten feet (three meters) in length. Lengths longer than this will amplify all the nasty side effects of unbalanced circuitry's ground loops.
- When all else fails, digitize everything, use fiber optic cable and enter a whole new realm of problems.

Connecting the wires as you suggest can be done, but it is not recommended in any way.

Edit:
Floating unbalanced often works to drive either a balanced or unbalanced input, depending if a TS or TRS standard cable is plugged into it. When it hums, a special cable is required. See drawings #11 and #12, and do not make the cross-coupled modification of tying the ring and sleeve together.
 
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If you want to quote Rane notes, I advise you to link to the Rane knowledge base instead.
Here's Ranenote 110 again:
RANE Commercial - Knowledge Base


Indeed. Have a look at connection diagram #17.



A really good explanation is the classic The G Word, or How to Get Your Audio off the Ground by Bruno Putzeys.

"The source, they say, produces two signals which are each other’s mirror image. Any source of interference will affect both wires equally and the error is eliminated when the receiver subtracts the two signals. Note how the authors of this type of explanation have difficulty shedding GND-think. If those two signals are neatly symmetrical, about what potential exactly are they symmetrical? The source’s return node? The chassis? Any of those onthe receiving side? And does it even matter? The input should only care about the difference between the two. The whole reason why the input measures the voltage between the two wires is precisely be-cause it’s trying to ignore those irrelevant potentials.

You can cut the amount of circuitry on the transmitting end by half simply by arbitrarily choosing some potential that it has handy anyway and connect one wire there. All it has to do is off-set the potential on the second wire to make the difference between the two the wanted output voltage.

This is just as good as the previous one. There’s no pressing need to drive both wires actively. One will do. On the receiving end it’s only the potential difference that matters. If one wire is connected to whatever node the source calls “my zero volts” the receiver duly subtracts the potentials of the two wires, regardless where its own personal zero volts might be with respect to the source’s. I'm 1.8 m tall when I measure myself standing on the office floor. But this is equally true when I’m standing on a landfill. If you want to know my height, simply subtract the altitude of the refuse horizon from the altitude of my bald patch. There’s no need for me to be dug in halfway.

This is seriously good news. To change an output from single-ended to differential all you need to add is an extra wire to carry the reference potential to the receiver. The burden then falls on the receiver to make the subtraction."



I suggest you fire up your favourite circuit simulator and verify it for yourself.
 
I suggest you fire up your favourite circuit simulator and verify it for yourself.

I will just file this away under "possible but sub optimal solutions", keep using my fully balanced setup as-is, and move on.

From Ranenote 110:
If you have a mixed balanced and unbalanced system, do yourself a favor and use isolation transformers or, if you can't do that, try the special cable assemblies described here and expect it to take many hours to get things quiet. May The Force be with you.
 
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hmm, I have always made my cables according to Hypex: https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/AN_Legacy_pin_1_problems.pdf
chapter 4.5

Connection 17 seems the shield to be floating floating. Or am I missing something?


They are kind of the same thing - the hypex document also shows the shielding should only be directly connected to chassis ground at one end, not both. You are OK connecting both ends if the source has ground lifted, otherwise the Hypex RF "filter" of capacitor/resistor is a good idea.
 
Is it possible to add a volume knob to Fusionamp / MP-DSP? We have a J15 plug for IR receiver. Is it possible to make a volume knob for it? I didn't find any documentation on pin 2 data format.

There is a pin 1 for some kind of output. Is there any information on its values? Can we get current volume from it?
 
I´d like to add some stuff, maybe it´s redundant here and there:

- "noise canceling" with balanced signal transport does not do anything to get rid of noise in the signal. It only helps to keeps away externally introduced faults to a minimum like interference from other cables, unwanted potential shift, etc.. So in Case you don´t experience any hum/hiss/krickles in your system which come from the cabling - there is no need for balanced transmission in terms of Sound quality. The signal quality by itself is not superior from unbalanced signal processing.
- Differences in the ground potential can introduce "hum" (50 or 60Hz). If the signal is completely uncoupled from the mass-potential (which CAN be the case when running symmetrical), you have no risk of getting a humming noise. Connecting equipment with different ground potentials with non-symmetrical CAN lead to hum.
- Cables, the longer they get, act like antennas - distortion introduced from this also can be minimized with symmetrical cabling..
- Capacitive effects also can be more of an issue with unsymmetrical - but not within 1m cable length - if you get problems here - change the cable :)

There are many "little helper" devices out there to take care of some of the unwanted scenarios - starting from simple ground lift, having better shielding on cables, do double shielding, using transformers in inputs, connecting grounds together, etc..
- the voltage levels on symmetrical and non-symmetrical often differ - sometimes people refer to "PA-Level" and "hifi-Level" - Hifi being much lower.

If you are using your gear for public stuff, move it a lot, have a lot of meters to cover with your cable, lots of combinations of different gear, sometimes rented, unknown... THEN you really should go for symmetrical Connections.

But if you connect two devices together which are only a few cm apart and if the built one solid unity which isn´t changed when used (like mounting a DSP in an Amp) - and if input/output levels match - there really is no need for symmetrical.. (Levels have to match in any case, using differential signals doesn't solve this on its own - lots of gear out there with adjustable output levels to cope with this...).
 
Had a flash inside FA122 module today (saw it through back cover). An apartment fuse unplugged and I left with two modules instead of 3 I had before.
Don't know what went wrong with it – didn't make any changes for a week or so and listened to speakers today for about an hour.
Got 3 modules on March 7. Since then one optical port stopped working and now one module is dead. Probably, a bad batch.
 
I am currently trying to export EQ filters from REW into a Hypex fusion. I have a text file with 20 filters on it (generic output filter.) The fusion only accepts 14.

1) Is there a way to set REW to create a max of 14 EQ filters?

Is there an easier way to do this rather than manually copy over the text?
 
I will shortly be borrowing one of these for a play with a view to buying for my 3 way centre.

Just wondered what the easiest or best way of using HFD is. I've been having a play with the software and it seems ok. Are people doing most things in REW, re measuring, verifying what the filters are doing exactly, and so on. Or are the measuring functions inside HFD any good for the basics. Haven't got one yet obviously so can't comment. Just trying to get a plan of action ready for when I get it in the next week or two.

Also I've yet to see any used ones come up for sale which is a good sign but money is tight so used would be good so I can do my LCR. Anyone seen any used ones sold in Europe/ on here on the classifieds yet?