Dusty Chalk

Seconded. Even though I don't have any of your cables.

I take it you didn't read the Rane page that Pars posted a link to. Here it is again. Note: I did read it, including the part right after "the last best right way to do it" which says that it is not frequently practised, but it does very clearly state earlier under "the absolute best right way to do it" that equipment should be grounded on both sides, and that that is the most correct way. It is this sense of "correctness" that they espouse that I've been trying to differentiate as "true" vs. "faux". -10 reading comprehension points for you, and you miss a down for being snippy about it. FURTHER, if you scroll down towards the end, to where it says "Floating, Pseudo, and Quasi-Balancing", you'll see that they very explicitly define exactly what I was talking about, when I used my made-up term of faux-balancing. So I AM NOT ALONE in making this differentiation. NYAH* (sputters) Exactly!!!1! That's why I don't want to call it "balanced"!!!1! You are correct that I should not have used "dual monoblock", but...I was grasping -- there is no term for going from 3 connectors to 4 connectors. All I know is that it's not "balanced". It's basically "stereo with separate returns". I don't even like "pseudo-balanced", since it is by no means a requirement -- you can still be single-ended stereo with 4 connectors. Well, there's two things going on here. One was the one that you latched on to, that I referred to "balanced" headphones as not really balanced, but you seem to have forgotten about why I mentioned that. I mentioned it because it confuses us, and is insufficient definition for "balanced" in other contexts, such as the phono cartridge as was originally asked at the beginning of this thread. I stand by that point, especially after this discussion. I do appreciate KG bringing us back to that, since that was the original purpose of this thread. And he also brought up a very good point in that even though a cartridge can have a 5th connection for that ground reference which I seem to so cravenly require, it is not necessarily a good thing, since it is not a piece of gear with a power supply. The Rane page mentions how the reference ground if used correctly can be a very powerful shield against hum and RF noise, especially in signals which are about to be amplified (and this is crucial with phono, since it is about to be preamplified). So I have no idea if one really wants to use that 5th connection in a phono cartridge, unless one is sure that it is implemented correctly in the cartridge, as a chassis ground (I.E. the cartridge shell). I think. So, I think you owe me an apology for (a) accusing me of quite possibly talking out of my ass, and ( for trying to bully me into succumbing to your point of view. NYAH* *NYAH == fuck you, the horse you rode in on, the herd it came from, and your mama.

They have input attenuators ("volume control"), but you'll find it easier to control from a preamp, yes. Especially if you go back and forth between normally mastered CD's (50%-100% capacity) and MFSL CD's (40-50% capacity -- of the few that I ripped, it seemed like every single one never used the most significant bit).

Gracias, muchacho. I just didn't make no sense.

Deadwood, Season 3, Episode "Leviathan Smiles" Joanie Stubbs: (D)oes it trouble you, keepin' watch on a dark place? Mose Manuel: No, ma'am, it does not. Especially when I know there's light comin' to it.

I've heard tkam's (now someone else's) SP Dragon. And it is quite good, nee, superb.

That's awesome. I hear that friggin' sleep number commercial all the time.

Yeah, I suspected most of them were fake, I just didn't want anyone to get carried away. Thanks, guys. We cool.

Fuck, I can't delete Churros.

That's some nice ASCII art, hydrocity. Happy Birthday, boy, some day, you'll be as old as me.

Yeah, well, I also see you regretting getting rid of everything.

Smeggy, you have too much toys. Gimme. Watts mean nothing, it's gain that effects the volume range. The new Musical Fidelity Superchargers have 550 Wpc, but a gain of 1 (I.E. unity, I.E. no gain).

Dude, those are what I have. Get 'em get 'em get 'em get 'em get 'em. Dew. Et.

I guess. You may change your vote. I may delete the option later, at my discretion. This is what I was calling grilled onions. Of course, here in America, they're quite tasty.

Well, then they're not balanced cables. "Floating" the ground is just a fancy way of saying I "disconnected" the ground. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it in the circumstances that mandate it -- absolutely you should. But most roadies would keep their truly balanced cables separate from the ones that had the ground disconnected, use the balanced ones first, wait for the ground loop, find it, then replace the balanced cable with the floated one. I'll address your first paragraph later, I need to get some more work done before I go home. To be honest, I was kind of hoping that KG would explain that part better. I'm not sure I can, but I'll try and give it a go later. I mean, think about it this way -- you don't call them balanced speakers when you drive them with separate + and - connectors, do you? They're just speakers. The whole thing about using three connectors was a design decision made early on with headphones, because headphones were so much easier to drive, they just used a common ground and single-ended topology to drive the two drivers. You don't need to go balanced just to go to the four-connector topology -- you could very easily have dual-monoblock, single-ended amplifiers driving the left and right drivers. Would you say they were balanced then? I would say no, but what I'm getting from you guys is that you'd still say the headphones were balanced, but that the amp is not. I don't get that.

See question. See question be asked. Be asked, question, be asked. Answer. Answer the question.

I didn't like the way Phil dismissed Steve Hackett's inputs during the press conference announcing the world tour, so he doesn't get a happy birthday from me.

I would just like to bump this suggestion, I would think it would be fairly easy, although I have no idea. It'd also be nice if, when the topic is emailed out to people, it got converted to true HTML -- would that be possible? So that they got the text obscured as well.

Chipotle has chips? I have one right across the street from me, here at work. How many do you want, jinp6301 -- I got PM'd some good info, so this may happen sooner than later.

I changed the name of your "so-called" amp.

Yeah, but the damage is done. Now that I know the Doritos ones exist -- and I did see elsewhere that some people thought the Hint of Lime Doritos were as addictive as crack -- I have to try some.

In general, I'd agree with you, but I think the context was the US$2K & up headphones, at which point a well-chosen pair of speakers are competitive. Which is funny, coming from me, Mr. Headphone Evangelist. My big thing is that speakers and headphones are such different listening experiences, I wouldn't trade one for the other.

So from the headphone's perspective, "balanced" means nothing. One of the drivers from a pair of headphones doesn't "know" if it's being driven by a bridged amp, or one single-ended one. I will admit, "faux-balanced" is not an accepted term, but I don't think "balanced headphones" is anything other than "mixing up words that mean nothing", either. I mean, turning that middle sentence in your post around, this one: you're saying that balanced headphones are the same as unbalanced headphones with separate grounds (what I would prefer to call returns). That's not truly balanced. That's the headphone equivalent of "dual monoblock" design, whatever the correct terminology for that is.

Guys, don't post snuff films, okay? I didn't watch them all, because the ones I watched were making me uncomfortable, but it seems like we're heading in that direction. If anyone wants me to go back and delete anything from any of their posts, let me know.

We need details. Details like: Where. Did. You. Get. It.