aah, that's closer yes, due to 100% horizontal noise floor A-weighting will improve the number to -3db, so -118.2-3 = -121dbAPretty sure this kicks the Audioquest Cobalt's butt big time after looking at Archimago's review : Cobalt Review
If only Atom had balanced input, tooCome to think of it, this makes for a prime candidate to embed into the JDS atom case since its so tiny !
If only Atom had balanced input, too
@maxxevv will that pass the full 3.3V to atom or half of that ? I'm guessing half?
Actually, this 2.5mm TRRS is a "virtual" balanced with no 3rd pin earth for each channel. So the output only has only 4 wires : L+, L-, R+,R-.
I actually have a harness that I bought to try my Sabaj Da3 with the Atom. 2.5mm TRRS to L-RCA and R-RCA.
Edit: Something very similar to this. Astell and Kern actually sells something like this too.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33011627751.html
So there is really no issue at all in connecting up to the Atom via the 2.5mm TRRS output of this device.
@amirm 's dashboard posts 3.3V per channel. I don't see why it won't pass that to the Atom though ??
I suspect that this cable will short the L- and R- outputs of the source through the (i the Atom connected) RCA shields.
I would not recommend using these adapters.
I asked because when you use a converter cable from a balanced signal to unbalanced output like RCA you typically lose half the voltage.
Only when you go through a 1:1 transformer into single ended output you can pass on full balanced voltage as far as I know.
Why so ? The cable runs on 4 separate wires. The L- and R- are not shared like in a 3 pole TRS jack though.
Doing basic math with 50ohm as reference, this should be around 140mW into 32ohm. Now, that would be the ideal.