Ok so lets back up a bit... In an un-balanced connection you have two wires, a signal and a ground. In a balanced connection you have three wires, a positive polarity signal, a negative polarity signal, and a ground.
A balanced input works by taking the positive signal and subtracting the negative signal. This is done because any noise that's picked up by the cable will be equal on both the positive and negative sides of the cable, so when they're subtracted, they cancel each other out. But because the signal is reverse polarity, they don't cancel, they add to twice the original value. That's why microphone cables are almost always balanced, they give a much better signal to noise ratio. In the case you're talking about, your amp doesn't have balanced inputs, so it can't do the subtraction. 95% of the XLR to RCA adapters and cables can't do the subtraction either, they just disconnect the negative polarity connection. As a result, it makes no difference if the adapter is at the source or receiver end. You are not getting any benefit from a balanced cable with these type of adapters. A very small number of adapters use a transformer to convert the balanced signal to an unbalanced one. This transformer is one way of performing the subtraction. If you use one of those, it's better to have the adapter at the receive end, to cancel any noise picked up by the cable. Hope this helps a bit! Dave -- DCtoDaylight ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DCtoDaylight's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7284 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=39209 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
