Balanced I/O modules

Xyrium · « **on:** 19 Mar 2005, 10:25 pm »

Has anyone added the White Noise balanced IO cards to their gear with any success?

http://www.wnaudio.com/balio.html

My Audiolab 8000Q has the cutouts for the XLR connectors, and my Odyssey Stratos has XLRs on it already, though they are not balanced.

guest2521 · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Mar 2005, 11:07 am »

I am using them as the basis for my volume control unit. I have a WNA switch box feeding a SE to balanced converter pair, then a balanced stepped attenuator followed by three pairs of balanced output modules to drive my tri-amped Bryston arrangement. This is pretty minimal with no gain - essentially a passive with incidental buffering provided by the balanced modules on either side thereby providing (hopefully) the best of active and passive approach.

Nick.

Xyrium · « **Reply #2 on:** 24 Mar 2005, 08:35 pm »

Interesting. That should be a solid design. A hybrid passive/active, though seemingly more passive and thus the low noise benefits.

guest2521 · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Mar 2005, 08:54 pm »

I think so:

None of the drawbacks of passive mode and almost all of the advantages. The only disadvanatge being the slight signal degradation through the balanced modules, which is more than offset by the performance gain of operating the brystons in balanced mode rather than single ended (plus I could never triamp passively - three power amp inputs each accross 3m of cable! given the brystons input charateristics the cables could be a max of 20cm long!). the triamped mb2s sounds massivley better than monoblocked mb2s so well worth while.

Nick

Ian M · « **Reply #4 on:** 19 Apr 2005, 08:47 pm »

then a balanced stepped attenuator followed by three pairs of balanced output modules
Nick.[/quote]

Hello,

Can you explain what a balanced stepped attenuator is (ie how it differs from an unbalanced one) ?

I cant visualise it !

Ian

guest2521 · « **Reply #5 on:** 19 Apr 2005, 10:28 pm »

Hi,

It keeps the hot and cold signal paths seperate, just as left and right channels are usually kept seperate.

Nick.

Ian M · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Apr 2005, 05:28 pm »

OK, bear with me, I'm getting there !
So does that mean two attenuators for each channel ? If so are they all on one spindle or do you have a control knob for each channel ?

guest2521 · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Apr 2005, 05:49 pm »

all on one spindle.