Balanced Phono Stage

[Tony Mac]

I'm in the market for a phono stage and I use a Mark Levinson no.383 integrated amp. It has two sets of balanced inputs, and I was wondering if it is worth it to get a balanced phono stage or should I save my money and just get a normal, unbalanced phono stage.

The only balanced phono stage I've seen that's somewhat reasonable is the PS Audio GCPH. Which runs about $600 used. Ideally, I'd like to spend around $400 for a phono stage.

I'm just now getting into turntables as I was gifted a Project RPM 1.3 for my birthday. I'd like to get a good sounding phono stage if I ever upgrade turntables in the future.

 

[Tony Mac]

Bump. Surely, someone has experience with this!

 

[tubewade]

The idea behind balanced cables is for noise rejection over long cable runs so if your phono amp is across the room from your amplifier then there might be some argument for this but if they are in close proximity to one another then I would not spend the extra money. Someone else will surely chime in.

 

[charles 1973]

I agree with tubewade! The main reason Ballanced connections are used is to reduce noise on long (over 25 - 50') Runs, and for Marketting purposes. I guess some figure if the pro's use it, it must be better, and it is...when your running a 75' mic line to the Mixing board, not so much for home stereo use. If you going less than 12' or so I wouldn't give it a second thought.

Also, Depending on how well designed the ballanced components are determins how effective it will be. On more than one occasion I've read reports where the RCA Connections worked better than the Ballanced ones. Some very Expensive Gear use nothing more than RCA Jacks.

 

[JohnVF]

Probably 1% of the people here if not fewer run fully balanced gear. Your question might get more traction in a forum with a different demographic. This is basically a vintage/budget forum.

 

[lini]

TM: I'm pretty much with Tubewade. But also for another reason: The single-ended approach is more compatible/tolerant regarding the various grounding schemes found on different turntables. Or to put it the other way round, for the balanced approach it's absolutely mission critical that the ground/negative outputs of the cartridge aren't tied to the separate headshell/arm/chassis ground anywhere. For perfect symmetry one might even feel inclined to remove usual the grounding strap to be found on many MMs and MIs (and connecting the generator shell to one of the ground/negative pins) and tie the generator shell to the separate headshell/arm/chassis ground instead. Hence I'd only suggest trying the balanced approach to people, who already have sufficient technical background knowledge...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Tony Mac]

Thanks for the advice guys. Since I'm probably going to be keeping all my components close together, there's no point in staying with a balanced signal.

Now the hard part is what phono stage to get! Too many choices...

 

[vinyldavid]

For what it's worth, PS Audio makes some damn great phono stages....

 

[for_p1]

I'm in the market for a phono stage and I use a Mark Levinson no.383 integrated amp. It has two sets of balanced inputs, and I was wondering if it is worth it to get a balanced phono stage or should I save my money and just get a normal, unbalanced phono stage.

The only balanced phono stage I've seen that's somewhat reasonable is the PS Audio GCPH. Which runs about $600 used. Ideally, I'd like to spend around $400 for a phono stage.

I'm just now getting into turntables as I was gifted a Project RPM 1.3 for my birthday. I'd like to get a good sounding phono stage if I ever upgrade turntables in the future.

Are you sure that PS Audio phono preamp is indeed balanced?. It does not look so from picture of it in Stereophile review. For phono preamp balanced INPUT is more important than balanced output. But keep in mind that special tonearm wiring is required, which is unusual in mainstream TTs. Also not all cartridges can benefit from it.