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[Ruairi O'Flaherty]

Hi all,

I am using a Cranesong Avocet as my monitor controller and I'm absolutely loving it, there are lots of features that I find incredibly useful (offsets etc). At the moment I have a borrowed pair of Parasound JC-1 monoblocks driving my PMC MB2, they are fantastic amps and pair very well with the PMCs - http://www.parasound.com/halo/jc1.php

I did some tests tonight using the unbalanced and balanced inputs of the amps and the results are quite different.  I'm using the Avocet into unbalanced inputs as directed by Cranesong (Pin 3 tied to ground).  I also noticed some strangeness recently when using my Hedd into an unbalanced input.  So I guess my question is does anyone have any experience using the Avocet into unbalanced inputs and if so did you notice a difference in sound compared to driving an otherwise the same balanced input?

It's  1 am here so my brain is not up to figuring out a testing methodology to isolate whether the difference is in the amp inputs or the Cranesong outputs.  I can borrow a Prism DA-2 shortly and try that both ways to see if there is a difference, using my own Benchmark DAC-1 recently revealed that it was much happier in balanced mode.

FWIW I preferred the sound of the unbalanced ins on the amps, they were quite a bit smoother.  I have a pair of Hypex UCD400HG with the HXR regulators on their way later this week so I guess using those and another DAC I should be able to figure out what's happening.

Cheers,
Ruairi