Are headphone balanced cables snakeoil?

[Sergei]

Yet another way to find out: https://www.zzounds.com/prodsearch?q=balanced+headphones => "We're sorry, your search : balanced headphone yielded no results".

It doesn't appear audio pros have demand for balanced headphones. Never saw a balanced headphone jack on a pro DAC or headphone amp. It doesn't exclude their existence, yet if they do exist, they must be very very rare.

 

[solderdude]

There are too many 'balanced' headphone connections.

2x XLR-3 pin (I thought Tyll was responsible for this)
4 pin XLR (more logical)
Pentaconn (tries to set a standard)
2x TRS jack 6.3mm
3.5mm TRRS
2.5mm TRRS
Some manufacturers invented their own pin assignment by lack of standards I assume.

It's kind of a mess. Maybe Pentaconn will make it but haven't seen many manufacturers use these sockets... price thing perhaps ?
Not very useful for 'non balanced' amps as most plugs are 3.5TRS or 6.35TRS so why add a Pentaconn socket when only few headphones have such a connector and on top of that would be using it not balanced.

It's a mess. At least the single ended 3.5mm, 6.35mm are pretty standard.
That is untill apple decided to use a different TRRS 3.5mm jack pin assignment for remote/mic.

 

[JJB70]

The most popular one I see seems to be 2.5mm TRRS (maybe because it is convenient for DAPs) but I'm a bit wary of the durability of 2.5mm jacks, it's bad enough for 3.5mm.

 

[solderdude]

I would have liked to have seen the 4-pin mini XLR becoming a standard instead of the BIG 4-pin XLR or the terribly old 6.35 mm TRS jack.
Too small to mount gardenhoses to it though....

Picture above from an Amphenol.
As an alterantive the Pentaconn seems like an option.
Not as big as 6.3mm TRS and a tad bigger than 3.5mm TRS kinda makes sense IF you want to keep plugs looking similar.

 

[SIY]

I love those connectors, and I use them exclusively in my home-built gear. They're also easy to retrofit for RCAs since the size is similar.

 

[sergeauckland]

Yet another way to find out: https://www.zzounds.com/prodsearch?q=balanced+headphones => "We're sorry, your search : balanced headphone yielded no results".

It doesn't appear audio pros have demand for balanced headphones. Never saw a balanced headphone jack on a pro DAC or headphone amp. It doesn't exclude their existence, yet if they do exist, they must be very very rare.

In all my years in Broadcast and Pro Audio I have never seen anything other than the standard jack for headphones, with one exception. All mixing desks and other outputs just provide a standard TRS jack socket. The only exception is the 2000 ohm mono headphone fitted with a B Gauge jack for use in jackfields where the 2000 ohms is OK as a bridging load. Those are balanced, albeit mono, and I've only ever seen those at the BBC.

S.

 

[trl]

Speaking only about the plug itself, worth mentioning that all jack are short-circuiting output buffers when plugging in and out the headphones plug. Hence, lowering the volume or pausing the melody might be a good thing to do. This is not happening with XLR plugs.

Also, for cables longer than 5m probably the balanced would be a better solution as well.

 

[sergeauckland]

Speaking only about the plug itself, worth mentioning that all jack are short-circuiting output buffers when plugging in and out the headphones plug. Hence, lowering the volume or pausing the melody might be a good thing to do. This is not happening with XLR plugs.

Also, for cables longer than 5m probably the balanced would be a better solution as well.

Although jacks can be shorting when inserted or removed, any driver amp should be short-circuit protected or it's not fit for use. Again, in all my years in audio, I have never had a headphone driver fail.

As for balanced cables over 5 metres, why would that matter? Firstly, the impedance and signal levels are such that hum pickup is hardly an issue, and secondly, the crosstalk introduced by the common ground impedance of a sensibly long cable is trivial, so again of no operational consequence. Studios have very long cables to headphone outlets, and I've never know those to be balanced.

S.

 

[trl]

Not saying that 1 sec. of short-circuit will get an output buffer defective, but definitely such overload is not desirable, so from my perspective XLR plug wins over the regular jack plug. Although, a simply resistor could be the only "protection" for some amplifiers, at least until the thermal protection will kick in, so again, XLR is an advantage.

Beyerdynamic DT880 600 Ohms cans with 10 meters headphones cable is just not something I'd like to see in my audio chain, unless they're balanced. I'll reattach Dr. Meier Corda's explanation: http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/.

Despite my above 2 bullet-points, I don't think that under normal conditions single-ended vs. balanced is something that could be actually noticed in a well-done A/B test, but given the fact that on this forum even a slight 0.1dB difference could matter, then I'm inclined to balanced operation for absolutely maximum performance (when needed, of course).

I personally used same cans in both single-ended and balanced, feed from the same DAC and same headamp (equipment was able to output SE and balanced at the same time), but given the few seconds time to unplug the cans and insert the Balanced-to-SE adapter I was unable to determine if there were sonically differences between the two outputs. However, if would be a huge "improvement", I would definitely noticed that for sure, but it wasn't; the only thing I've noticed was a lower background noise when using balanced operation (I was able to hear that with sensitive 16-Ohms IEMs and this was also measured with ARTA; also manufacturer is indicating this difference in the datasheet too: 114dB vs. 108dB A-weighted).
Cans testes: AKG K701, AKG K550 and Byerdynamic DT 880 (600 Ohms)
DAC was ASUS Essence One MKii
Headamp was Matrix HPA-3B.

 

[abm0]

The biggest benefit balanced headphone implementations seem to give is (usually) offering 2x the power, for the rare times when that's actually necessary.

Not when factoring in the price though. An SE amp can offer about the same output power as a "balanced" one if it's designed with the same performance goals in mind and for the same price. The FiiO Q1 mkII costs about the same as the Q1 and offers about the same max. power via "balanced" as its predecessor did via SE. The ES100 costs 99 USD vs. the 70 of the BTR3 and offers less than 2x the max. power (bal.) into 300 ohms vs. the BTR3 (SE), so less than 3 dB_SPL louder. "Twice the power" when promised to the consumer is just another marketing lie, and sadly often repeated by buyers of "balanced" devices making themselves feel better about their purchase.

In general really only the crosstalk improvement is a guaranteed benefit of "balanced" amps+cables, and it won't even be audible except with the lowest-impedance headphones and highest common GND resistance cables. And even then it can be completely solved by switching to a 4-wire cable that terminates both L and R return wires at the TRS plug sleeve, so that the only remaining common GND resistance is the plug-jack contact resistance.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I have been omitting balanced connection or the ones tomchr proposed use unbalanced with xlr jack.
Only recently, when I tested dual channel driven in dx3pro thread, I found something weird. Not that dx3pro is the weird one. It's when I test my amplifier, usually 0.0001x% thd with 8ohm load 100mw SINGLE CHANNEL DRIVEN, in DUAL CHANNEL DRIVEN test, the distortion rise up to 0.002x% basically 26db+ degradation in performance. This almost made everything I tried to accomplish useless. I really wish I was aware of this earlier. Actually I was aware even almost a year ago, but I decided to omit it. It's 10db better with 32ohm load and another 10db-20db better with no load. So if I use balanced output(or unbalanced with separated ground) I may have 30db performance gain in crosstalk. And this is at 1khz. I really don't feel as good now.

 

[Andy79]

Hello, I revive this thread with a question, if somebody could help me.

Is it possible to have a balanced 2.5 TRRS to 6.3 TRS (need to feed active desktop speakers from the 9038s DAC).

And if yes, is there a place to buy these? Was unsuccessful with my searches so far.

Thank you

 

[JohnYang1997]

Hello, I revive this thread with a question, if somebody could help me.

Is it possible to have a balanced 2.5 TRRS to 6.3 TRS (need to feed active desktop speakers from the 9038s DAC).

And if yes, is there a place to buy these? Was unsuccessful with my searches so far.

Thank you

no

 

[Andy79]

Even if I meant 2.5 TRRS to 2x 6.3 TRS?

So what other options I have to feed the amp with the 9038s. Only with TRRS to 2x XLR?

Thanks

 

[JohnYang1997]

Even if I meant 2.5 TRRS to 2x 6.3 TRS?

So what other options I have to feed the amp with the 9038s. Only with TRRS to 2x XLR?

Thanks

Then it's possible. The ground pin could be omit.

 

[solderdude]

Even if I meant 2.5 TRRS to 2x 6.3 TRS?

So what other options I have to feed the amp with the 9038s. Only with TRRS to 2x XLR?

Thanks

The options you have is to use the ground of the USB and L+ and R+ signal under the condition that the amplifier behind it is not DC coupled on the input.

The other option you have is to use a line transformer (ground loop breaker).

The third option is to use a device with a balanced input and single ended output.

Another option is to buy gear with a balanced input.

Yet another option is to sell the 9038S and buy the 9038D (single ended version)


Basically:
You can connect something that is balanced to single ended when a ground path is present.
You can connect something that is balanced to a balanced input with or without a ground connection.
You can not connect something that is balanced to single ended when no ground path is present.


You can also connect a single ended output to a balanced input.

 

[Andy79]

I have a pair of balanced fiio ioms that i'll use it with, was just trying to expand the applicability

Thanks for the detailed answer!

 

[suttondesign]

Balanced connections eliminated some 60hz noise from my 20' preamp to speaker setup. In my headphone setups, I never go more than 4'. I cannot fathom a reason to throw money at balanced headphone cables for a very short run unless there's audio gear nearby with strong magnetic fields (or whatever). That said, people at the headphone meets and people who buy gear from me are really convinced it's the way to go. Also, the Sennheiser rep. I know insists the HD800 are massively different with a balanced cable, and I'm sure the fact that Sennheiser sells one for a gazillion dollars (rounded down) has no bearing on his opinion. Sigh. Woe is the honest hi-fi dealer.

 

[doctorjuggles]

One of the things that disappoints me is the way the formerly sensible headphone segment has followed the rest of hi-fi down the route of silly expensive cables, an it must be good because it has a four figure price and is made by the fashionable brand of the moment. It is not that long ago that the Sennheiser HD580 was pretty much as good as it got despite being cheap compared to today's high end headphones. I wouldn't call balanced headphone cables snake oil but I would call some of the expensive after market ones snake oil.

I know this is an old post but I agree 100%. I used to love head-fi (and still do for several reasons) but the near-total ban on ABX chat means that so much goes unchallenged now. I subscribe to the 64 Audio thread and 90% of it is people recommending £1500 cables with absolute authority and zero pushback. Amazing to see the change over the last 10-15 years

 

[sergeauckland]

I know this is an old post but I agree 100%. I used to love head-fi (and still do for several reasons) but the near-total ban on ABX chat means that so much goes unchallenged now. I subscribe to the 64 Audio thread and 90% of it is people recommending £1500 cables with absolute authority and zero pushback. Amazing to see the change over the last 10-15 years

It's the reason I came off the other forums I was active on. In one case, I was the pushback, and was asked, politely, by the forum owner to stop posting as it was upsetting his advertisers who were selling the Foo stuff. With another forum, there was a thread about a £3000 digital filter and another thread about a digital interconnect covered in ferrite beads, with again zero pushback about their stupidity and/or cupidity.

S.