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Author Topic: Balanced and Unbalanced  (Read 1652 times)

mcsnare

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Balanced and Unbalanced
« on: July 08, 2004, 07:14:36 PM »

I'm scratchin' my bald head tryin' to figure out the best way to hook my process chain up. I have some pieces that are balanced, some unbalanced. My eq's are unbalanced, and compressors as well as converters are balanced. I currently have all analog stuff chained together in one long path between D/A and A/D.
Should I turn the outputs on the D/A's up 6 db to make up the loss? Should I leave that at unity out and just make up the gain with the compressor(s). I've tried lots of combinations and can't seem to hit that magic zone. What am I overlooking? To any Jedi master(ing) engineers out there, I'd love some suggestions.
Dave McNair

bblackwood

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Re: Balanced and Unbalanced
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2004, 09:53:23 AM »

If you are gonna always use everything in the chain, you can simply turn up your ADC gain to make up for the loss. I would avoid the DAC trimming as it would make it more difficult to A/B source to post-processed output...
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Brad Blackwood
euphonic masters

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Re: Balanced and Unbalanced
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2004, 12:35:53 PM »

It's not quite as simple as balanced and unbalanced. "Balanced" means different things to different people. When everything used transformers you didn't have to think about it much. Everything was balanced and floating, meaning each conductor was the same impedance to ground but the ground connection wasn't needed. It's not a "ground" it's a "sheild".

"Electronicaly balanced" outputs are not all the same. There are many different styles that will yield different results in different situations.

It's all very confusing. To really get a handle on what's going on you need to understand the topology of the input/output stage. There is no good answer as to what will work best. As soon as you change something around it could not work as well.

I have decided myself to only use balanced (whatever that means) connections. Most gear comes that way. Since most but not all gear is unbalanced internally the purist way to do it would be to bypass the output balancing stage. That takes skill and a willingness to void warranties. No easy answer.
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Paul Gold
www.saltmastering.com

On the silk road, looking for uranium.
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