What annoys me today in marketing and media that too often today then talking on hi-fi, science is replaced by bizarre belief structures and marketing fluff, leading to a decades-long stagnation of the audiophile domain. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Hi-fi world is filled by pseudoscience, dogma and fruitloopery to the extent that it resembles a fundamentalist religion. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
Business for Engineers: Marketers Lie article points tout that marketing tells lies — falsehoods — things that serve to convey a false impression. Marketing’s purpose is to determining how the product will be branded, positioned, and sold. It seems that there too many snake oil rubbish products marketed in the name of hifi. It is irritating to watch the stupid people in the world be fooled.
In EEVblog #29 – Audiophile Audiophoolery video David L. Jones (from EEVBlog) cuts loose on the Golden Ear Audiophiles and all their Audiophoolery snake oil rubbish. The information presented in Dave’s unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style! He’s an enthusiastic chap, but couldn’t agree more with many of the opinions he expressed: Directional cables, thousand dollar IEC power cables, and all that rubbish. Monster Cable gets mostered. Note what he says right at the end: “If you pay ridiculous money for these cable you will hear a difference, but don’t expect your friends to”. If you want to believe, you will.
My points on hifi-nonsense:
One of the tenets of audiophile systems is that they are assembled from components, allegedly so that the user can “choose” the best combination. This is pretty largely a myth. The main advantage of component systems is that the dealer can sell ridiculously expensive cables, hand-knitted by Peruvian virgins and soaked in snake oil, to connect it all up. Say goodbye to the noughties: Yesterday’s hi-fi biz is BUSTED, bro article asks are the days of floorstanders and separates numbered? If traditional two-channel audio does have a future, then it could be as the preserve of high resolution audio. Sony has taken the industry lead in High-Res Audio.
HIFI Cable Humbug and Snake oil etc. blog posting rightly points out that there is too much emphasis placed on spending huge sums of money on HIFI cables. Most of what is written about this subject is complete tripe. HIFI magazines promote myths about the benefits of all sorts of equipment. I am as amazed as the writer that that so called audiophiles and HIFI journalists can be fooled into thinking that very expensive speaker cables etc. improve performance. I generally agree – most of this expensive interconnect cable stuff is just plain overpriced.
I can agree that in analogue interconnect cables there are few cases where better cables can really result in cleaner sound, but usually getting any noticeable difference needs that the one you compare with was very bad yo start with (clearly too thin speaker wires with resistance, interconnect that picks interference etc..) or the equipment in the systems are so that they are overly-sensitive to cable characteristics (generally bad equipment designs can make for example cable capacitance affect 100 times or more than it should). Definitely too much snake oil. Good solid engineering is all that is required (like keep LCR low, Teflon or other good insulation, shielding if required, proper gauge for application and the distance traveled). Geometry is a factor but not in the same sense these yahoos preach and deceive.
In digital interconnect cables story is different than on those analogue interconnect cables. Generally in digital interconnect cables the communication either works, does not work or sometimes work unreliably. The digital cable either gets the bits to the other end or not, it does not magically alter the sound that goes through the cable. You need to have active electronics like digital signal processor to change the tone of the audio signal traveling on the digital cable, cable will just not do that.
But this digital interconnect cables characteristics has not stopped hifi marketers to make very expensive cable products that are marketed with unbelievable claims. Ethernet has come to audio world, so there are hifi Ethernet cables. How about 500 dollar Ethernet cable? That’s ridiculous. And it’s only 1.5 meters. Then how about $10,000 audiophile ethernet cable? Bias your dielectrics with the Dielectric-Bias ethernet cable from AudioQuest: “When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.” I see this as complete marketing crap speak. It seems that they’re made for gullible idiots. No professional would EVER waste money on those cables. Audioquest even produces iPhone sync cables in similar price ranges.
HIFI Cable insulators/supports (expensive blocks that keep cables few centimeters off the floor) are a product category I don’t get. They typically claim to offer incredible performance as well as appealing appearance. Conventional cable isolation theory holds that optimal cable performance can be achieved by elevating cables from the floor in an attempt to control vibrations and manage static fields. Typical cable elevators are made from electrically insulating materials such as wood, glass, plastic or ceramics. Most of these products claim superior performance based upon the materials or methods of elevation. I don’t get those claims.
Along with green magic markers on CDs and audio bricks is another item called the wire conditioner. The claim is that unused wires do not sound the same as wires that have been used for a period of time. I don’t get this product category. And I don’t believe claims in the line like “Natural Quartz crystals along with proprietary materials cause a molecular restructuring of the media, which reduces stress, and significantly improves its mechanical, acoustic, electric, and optical characteristics.” All sounds like just pure marketing with no real benefits.
CD no evil, hear no evil. But the key thing about the CD was that it represented an obvious leap from earlier recording media that simply weren’t good enough for delivery of post-produced material to the consumer to one that was. Once you have made that leap, there is no requirement to go further. The 16 bits of CD were effectively extended to 18 bits by the development of noise shaping, which allows over 100dB signal to noise ratio. That falls a bit short of the 140dB maximum range of human hearing, but that has never been a real goal. If you improve the digital media, the sound quality limiting problem became the transducers; the headphones and the speakers.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article says that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. that today’s loudspeakers are nowhere near as good as they could be, due in no small measure to the presence of “traditional” audiophile products. I can agree with this. Loudspeaker performance hasn’t tangibly improved in forty years and vast sums are spent addressing the wrong problems.
We need to talk about SPEAKERS: Soz, ‘audiophiles’, only IT will break the sound barrier article makes good points on design, DSPs and the debunking of traditional hi-fi. Science makes progress, pseudo-science doesn’t. Legacy loudspeakers are omni-directional at low frequencies, but as frequency rises, the radiation becomes more directional until at the highest frequencies the sound only emerges directly forwards. Thus to enjoy the full frequency range, the listener has to sit in the so-called sweet spot. As a result legacy loudspeakers with sweet spots need extensive room treatment to soak up the deficient off-axis sound. New tools that can change speaker system designs in the future are omni-directional speakers and DSP-based room correction. It’s a scenario ripe for “disruption”.
Computers have become an integrated part of many audio setups. Back in the day integrated audio solutions in PCs had trouble earning respect. Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? posting tells that it’s been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced (a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs) and many enthusiasts still consider a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It seems that in general onboard sound is finally “Good Enough”, and has been “Good Enough” for a long time now. For most users it is hard to justify the high price of special sound card on PC anymore. There are still some PCs with bad sound hardware on motherboard and buttload of cheap USB adapters with very poor performance. However, what if you want the best sound possible, the lowest noise possible, and don’t really game or use the various audio enhancements? You just want a plain-vanilla sound card, but with the highest quality audio (products typically made for music makers). You can find some really good USB solutions that will blow on-board audio out of the water for about $100 or so.
Although solid-state technology overwhelmingly dominates today’s world of electronics, vacuum tubes are holding out in two small but vibrant areas. Some people like the sound of tubes. The Cool Sound of Tubes article says that a commercially viable number of people find that they prefer the sound produced by tubed equipment in three areas: musical-instrument (MI) amplifiers (mainly guitar amps), some processing devices used in recording studios, and a small but growing percentage of high-fidelity equipment at the high end of the audiophile market. Keep those filaments lit, Design your own Vacuum Tube Audio Equipment article claims that vacuum tubes do sound better than transistors (before you hate in the comments check out this scholarly article on the topic). The difficulty is cost; tube gear is very expensive because it uses lots of copper, iron, often point-to-point wired by hand, and requires a heavy metal chassis to support all of these parts. With this high cost and relative simplicity of circuitry (compared to modern electronics) comes good justification for building your own gear. Maybe this is one of the last frontiers of do-it-yourself that is actually worth doing.
2,499 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dr. Sean Olive Calls Out Reviewers for Misusing the Harman Target Curve
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/10/sean-olive-calls-misuse-harman-target-curves/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/11/memes-every-music-lover-feel-deep-soul/
Tomi Engdahl says:
For digital, nowadays it’s very very hard to bring errors into a USB interface. Jitter doesn’t really happen nowadays and even if the waveform is heavily distorted, edge detection is not gonna be an issue for the circuitry. I’m mostly speaking USB 2.0 and up. For ethernet and HDMI there are error correction protocols so even if you somehow induce an inappropriate digital package, either it won’t matter because the packages are accepted at a speed way beyond your comprehension or something will straight out break. Sure, transmission line issues come about with higher frequencies but that’s why things like twisted pairs exists on ethernet cables. Seriously, we work with high frequency specialized lab equipment at my work and somehow that’s able to provide real-time feedback through a 3 meter ethernet cable at up to a 100MHz with standard Cat5 cable and HDMI can go up to 1GHz nowadays and provide both video and audio. Funnily enough, the cables that give out the most are old coaxial video cables, because a current interface connection at high frequencies is extremely volatile and the moment the screening gets damaged even a little bit, everything fails.
From comments at https://www.facebook.com/share/p/198t3i9WNM/
Tomi Engdahl says:
I have never seen audiophool speaker cables or cable lifters in professional studios. The end…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital stuff has error correction and clock regeneration etc. So not an issue there, despite the snake-oil salesmen trying to tell you otherwise.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Also not really related to high end audio, but capacitance does play a role in instrument-level signals. Try playing a guitar through a long cable and/or pedalboard without proper buffering and it will sound like crap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Martti JN that’s true, also applies to phono cables, particularly for MM cartridges.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The limits of my spending are more in the “worlds best cables” on Amazon. They’re shields are single side grounded and they use good wire/connectors. The only time I ever noticed a difference after upgrading was a 25′ RCA run near a bunch of power cables.
Bare basics work, fancy cables do not.
Capacitance and inductance figure in too. Imagine a pair of balanced audio cables running 1000′ carrying audio from a radio station studio to the transmitter. The amplifier at the studio end has a 600 ohm output impedance, and the device at the other end has a 600 ohms input impedance. This circuit will have significantly more loss at 15Khz than at 1 KHz, so the highs will be rolled off. There is different phase shift as well, so group delay is all over the map. One trick is to use audio transformers at each end to step down to 150 ohms, which changes the characteristics a lot. But if you look at the figures from the Belden catalog you can do the math. We often used Belden 8451. There is a bigger cable with lower capacitance I think, which changes the effect. Cables do matter over distance. Not so much in your living room.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You would have to convince people who think a USB cable can change the sonic qualities of digital content. It’s a religion for them, so there’s no talking sense into them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The digital stuff is all 0′s and 1′s. High, or low. There is no in between. Either the signal makes it there, or it doesn’t. Drop a few along the way and error correction algorithms pick up the slack.
If it works well enough for literally all of the worlds critical data, I can promise it’s going to work for a sound system. A $5 ethernet cable is going to work just as well as a $5,000 audiophile one for digital signals. The rest is aesthetics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Biology and neuroscience are also relevant here. Because even if there are measurable differences anywhere, the human brain might not be able to perceive them. This is why 99% of expensive cables are a scam.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Um, wut?
The issue isn’t “differences “in cables. There are going to be some very slight differences just due to things like wire size, impedance, length, etc..
The problem is claiming bullshit like cables actually impart qualities like “air “or “an open soundstage” or have some sort of quantum bullshit properties that will drastically improve your system – and then charging a 10,000% markup on 25 cents worth of copper and rubber.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I need to remind people that the reactance of a speaker is above one ohms. So changing resistance has no affect using any reasonable wire. The spades i like over banan but this is not audible. No cable is going to have capacitance that will affect frequency response. Maybe inductance would be ppm ….
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/198t3i9WNM/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Old myths, new tech, and stubborn pride keep one of audio’s biggest breakthroughs misunderstood.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/why-audiophiles-dont-trust-class-d-amps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here are the albums referenced in that article:
1. Pink Floyd – *Dark Side of the Moon*
2. Steely Dan – *Aja*
3. Eagles – *Hotel California*
4. Dire Straits – *Brothers in Arms*
5. Various Artists – *Jazz at the Pawnshop*
6. Miles Davis – *Kind of Blue*
7. Diana Krall – *Live in Paris*
8. Norah Jones – *Come Away With Me*
9. Eva Cassidy – *Songbird*
10. Patricia Barber – *Café Blue*
11. Alison Krauss & Union Station – *Live*
12. Shelby Lynne – *Just a Little Lovin’*
13. Amber Rubarth – *Sessions from the 17th Ward*
14. Hans Zimmer – *Interstellar*
15. Daft Punk – *Random Access Memories*
You’re welcome
Tomi Engdahl says:
When the kicks get fast and the guitars pile up, only good setups stay clean.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/metal-tracks-test-system-power-precision-control/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The technology meant to simplify testing is now making bad data look more believable.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/measurement-tools-tricking-audiophiles-warns-speaker-designer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Producer David Chesky explains that modern mastering favors speed, impact, and instant clarity, even at the cost of realism. This produces music that dazzles in demos but tires your ears at home.
Here’s how engineers make that happen, and why it keeps fooling listeners: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/modern-studio-tricks-audio-systems-sound-wrong/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/02/music-producer-shares-regrets-using-headphones/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here are the top 30 songs with the best bass lines, as voted by thousands of audiophiles: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/songs-greatest-basslines-voted-audiophiles/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Separate power amps are an anachronistic leftover from the previous millenium anyway.
Much better engineering is to put the amps in the speaker and design for the actual element being driven.
Just eliminating the nasty analogue crossovers is a huge win. And then you have all the other benefits.
Almost all professional speakers today have integrated power amp. It’s just so much better.
(But hey, huge, warm, glowing power amps maybe will impress your — male — friends
Tomi Engdahl says:
Flat cables…flat response? Flat broke? Flat out of your mind? Flat out lying?
There has to be some sort of relationship.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oh, wow, doesn’t matter the price, that’s peak audiophoolery there. 900 hours for burn-in? Bet the return policy is a wee bit shorter than that. Heck, the full warranty is only for 2 years according to their website. Good luck hitting 900 hours of listening in that without being an especially sedentary boomer retiree.
Don’t see how those toy blocks drilled out to be banana plugs will even work with the standard 3/4″ centers spacing found with the majority of binding posts. Whew, what a doozy. Definitely a product targeted at a customer base they believe particularly stupid ie the “trust your ears/you can’t judge without hearing it/your system isn’t good enoug/etc” crowd.
Tomi Engdahl says:
He’s been upgrading his vinyl system for the past 10 years and has invested a lot of money in his hobby. But, he found that even after spending a lot on high-end gear, the sound quality of vinyl still cannot beat the crisp and consistent sound quality of a cheap CD.
Do you agree with his realization?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Source https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Pf9cVkbzL/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This technology fixed its flaws years ago, but its bad reputation refuses to die: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/why-audiophiles-dont-trust-class-d-amps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Old myths, new tech, and stubborn pride keep one of audio’s biggest breakthroughs misunderstood.
On paper, Class D amplification checks every box. It offers ultra-low distortion, sky-high efficiency, and more power for the money than legacy A/B circuits. Yet many enthusiasts still don’t see them as worthy of a high-end system
Tomi Engdahl says:
This reflects a philosophical divide in high-end audio: one camp seeks accuracy, while the other values euphony. Engineers call it distortion; listeners call it personality.
Complaints about brittle or “glassy” highs persist, though modern circuits largely eliminate these issues. The causes are often misunderstood. Switching noise itself occurs far above human hearing (typically between 250 kHz to 1.5 MHz) and is heavily filtered.
What listeners perceive as harshness more often arises from the input stage, feedback topology, or interaction with specific loudspeakers.
Certain Class D amplifiers without post-filter feedback can exhibit slight frequency response peaks when driving complex speaker loads, accentuating treble energy. These effects are measurable but design-specific, not inherent to Class D technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Well-executed amps (e.g., with PFFB, adequate phase margin, stout SMPS design, and clear stability into 2 Ω loads) are effectively immune. But because many listeners first meet Class D through marginal designs or tricky speakers, this load sensitivity becomes “proof” that Class D is brittle—when it’s really an implementation and protection-strategy issue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s how the tariff wave is hitting audio brands and pushing prices higher across every major product category: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/audio-gear-biggest-price-consumer-goods-tariffs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DmBwmp42N/
Despite what you might have read or heard elsewhere, all digital interconnect cables perform the task of transferring a digital signal in EXACTLY the same way if they’re built correctly to the AES50 specification and using correct AES-spec components.
Jitter/error-correction is handled by the DACs’ FIFO buffer and re-clock chip and NOT in the cable.
Anyone who tries to convince you that there are audible differences between different COAX or AES cables is simply trying to justify a stupidly high asking-price by claiming their cable transfers digital bits better becasue of [insert bullshit here].
Any differences that you perceive when swapping Coax cables will be due to placebo, expectation-bias and subjective opinion. That’s a terrible way for me to sell cables, but it’s the truth.
As a pragmatic and realistic cable-manufacturer I make no such claims that my cables work or ‘sound’ better than anyone elses – they’re just well-made coax cables using correct AES components and they do what it says on the tin, nothing more!
One of the areas where my digital cables CAN actually perform better is via the noise-mitigation features and I use AES-spec double-shielded cable from Sommer and vanDamme in this respect.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dealers say the real price shock hasn’t even hit customers yet.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/audio-gear-biggest-price-consumer-goods-tariffs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
15 speakers from the past decade that thousands of audiophiles already consider “future classics”: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/best-speakers-released-past-decade/
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s called pyramid and it’s dope AF!
Also known as the Rare and Infamous “Dinner Bell” Wrap!
Obviously best for a new cable.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19pePADysS/
Tomi Engdahl says:
There’s a lot of manual labor that goes into making these cables! Those snakes don’t squeeze the oil out of themselves that only makes a difference in the sound only if you think that it does!
Tomi Engdahl says:
The warm, rich sound of vinyl records has long been celebrated by vinyl fans. However, some industry experts recently revealed the dirty secrets about the equipment we rely on to produce that beloved analog sound.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/08/critical-flaws-vinyl-playback-no-one-talks/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=recycle&utm_campaign=link_in_comment
“Of all the cartridges I analyze, one out of eight do not meet manufacturer specifications,” Boisclair stated.
While cartridge flaws are a big problem, the experts were quick to point out that the tonearm, often overlooked, can cause even more playback issues.
For one, the panel revealed that tonearm problems often look like cartridge issues, leading to wrong diagnoses of sound quality problems.
J.R. Boisclair emphasized this point: “It’s almost never the cartridge’s fault. It’s almost always the fault of the tonearm being out of control with its horizontal torque forces or static friction.”
All these hidden flaws in our cartridges and tonearms aren’t just theory – they’re messing with our listening in ways we might not even notice.
“We’re actually dealing with a nanometer problem. Something that is so small we’re no longer at the thickness of a hair or a couple of thousandths of an inch that you can feel with a fingernail.” says Dohmann.
“We’re talking stuff that’s almost, well, you definitely can’t see it with a naked eye.”
What Audiophiles Can Do
So, what’s a vinyl enthusiast to do with all this information? The panelists had some practical advice:
Regular cartridge inspections and professional alignments
Investing in high-quality measurement tools for DIY dans
Paying close attention to tonearm setup, particularly anti-skating and azimuth adjustment
Considering professional calibration services for high-end systems
Tomi Engdahl says:
That’s totally cooked
The stove couldn’t stand his music taste, so it took control… literally.
see that? even stoves are BOSEY
A user made a surprising discovery when his induction stovetop started controlling his wireless headphones. While making breakfast, he realized that changing the temperature on his stove also changed the volume of his wireless headphones.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/08/man-discovers-stove-controls-wireless-headphones/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=recycle&utm_campaign=link_in_comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
Most people test their audio gear with jazz or classical because those genres reveal detail and balance. But they won’t tell you how your system handles pressure the way metal does.
Here’s the full list of tracks to test your audio system’s power, precision, and control: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/metal-tracks-test-system-power-precision-control/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers expose the hidden body response that explains why bass-heavy music feels addictive.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/boosting-bass-triggers-physical-emotional-arousal-study/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A top audio engineer explains why “pro studio” gear can backfire in a quiet living room.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/balanced-cables-more-noise-highend-audio-engineer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A top audio engineer explains why “pro studio” gear can backfire in a quiet living room..
Balanced XLR cables have long been treated like a quick upgrade for cleaner sound. But according Michael Børresen, co-founder and designer at Audio Group Denmark, that belief doesn’t hold up in a living room. In many setups, balanced doesn’t reject noise any better and may even make the system more complicated.
In environments where interference and crosstalk are real problems, XLR has became the safe default.
“In that context, balanced doesn’t automatically buy you lower noise, as good grounding, shielding, and sensible layout matter more.”
“In a typical home setup, the biggest contributor to noise isn’t crosstalk between multiple signals, but the contamination on the ground path.”
“And, because both single-ended and balanced cables rely on a ground or shield, any interference introduced here can still couple into the audio signal.”
“Most of the noise bleeding into your signal wires is from the ground side anyway. So if you pollute the ground in a balanced circuit, you still have noise from that. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t give you any real benefits,” he explains in a recent interview with Next Level HiFi.
- and he is wrong with systems that have properly built (AES standards) XLR interconnections, they really help with ground problems. But there are also bad XLR implementations that are very sensitive to ground noise, so with those his talks if ground noise can have some merit.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/balanced-cables-more-noise-highend-audio-engineer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
He’s right in a way. Everything inside an amplifier is single ended. (Referenced to ground.) To turn it into balanced, you either have to run it through an audio transformer, which introduces distortion, or you have to advanced amplifier stage at each end. But I’m talking about analog. The article starts off talking about AES digital, which has nothing to do with it. If you’re running AES digital in a living room, yoi don’t need balanced.
ALSO- one cannot simply switch to “balanced XLR cables as a quick upgrade for a cleaner sound.” If your equipment has unbalanced inputs and outputs, you need to use unbalanced cables.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boosting the bass triggers measurable physical and emotional arousal even at low volumes, says new study: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/boosting-bass-triggers-physical-emotional-arousal-study/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=link_in_comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
This explains why entire forums are full of owners trying to undo the upgrades they once bragged about.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/common-vintage-audio-upgrades-actually-ruining-value/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Aylward Right. If you design it for only balanced inputs and the source has the source has identical impedances on both polarities.
The single opamp solution forces a compromise between input impedance and noise because you need a 20k resistor in the signal path and requires large value coupling caps (if ac coupled). You also need to increase the value of the feedback capacitor.
All the added complexity and distortion isn’t really worth it for home hifi use. I’m pretty sure Doug Self has the same stance.
But hey. They’re just guys that literally wrote books on the subject and everyone else here are Facebook experts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A top audio engineer explains why “pro studio” gear can backfire.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/balanced-cables-more-noise-highend-audio-engineer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
XLR outputs do not need extra line drivers and can be wired TN-S from what would otherwise be a single-ended source, All that is needed is a resistor on the grounded conductor (pin 3) that matches the impedance of the driven conductor (pin 2).
Inputs are where things get a bit more interesting. Single-ended circuits (by definition) require and produce signals as voltages between a dedicated wire (the “signal” wire) and a wire (the “signal ground” or “reference” wire) that is shared with other signals as well as the power supply neutral. When connecting single-ended circuits together, there are two ways of handling this: one can either merge the two reference wires together into one big net (which is what RCA does), or use some kind of reference-shifting component (such as a transformer or diffamp) to pass the signal while keeping the reference wires separate (which is what XLR does).
Since the current many different signals travels along a reference wire, this means that any voltage drop on it appears on all signals, causing crosstalk between signals, as well as noise from current between multiple power supplies (which is why devices using RCA should be plugged into the same power strip, to minimize this). Keeping this voltage drop to a below-audible threshold can often involve using quite large reference wires (2mm² for a standard 2m cable), making in-spec RCA cables as heavy as light-duty extension cords. Furthermore, the fact that an RCA cable has no earth connector can cause it act as a radio antenna when connecting two devices in grounded cases (this is why so many turntables have their output cables electrical taped to a standalone earth wire). Some devices try to mitigate this by bonding the reference wire to the case, but this causes more voltage-drop problems by exposing the signal path to stray currents from the building’s protective earth network. No matter if reference is bonded to chassis or not, either voltage drop or the antenna effect severely limits the length of connection that is practical with RCA cables.
Since recording studios often have equipment that is spaced apart, often in buildings wired with conduit (which produces much more stray current on the protective earth network than the NMD90 cable typically used in residential construction), merging all reference wires together becomes quite impractical, so they must be kept separate. The simplest way to achieve this is through transformer inputs, which pass the signal carried between the two wires without allowing any net current down the length of the cable. When working with RCA equipment, transformers can be added externally to allow for long signal runs, or when connecting blocks of equipment together that are connected to different power sources.
Because good transformers are expensive and cheap transformers can add their own distortion, balanced connectors (such as XLR and the original mono TRS standard) use a clever trick to reduce the need for them while keeping reference wires separate. By requiring both signal wires in a balanced output have the same resistance to any shared circuitry (usually achieved by adding a matching resistor to the side with lower resistance), a differential amplifier (a type of reference-sifting circuit using transistors instead of windings) can be used instead of a transformer to shift an incoming signal onto another device’s reference. Because any current paths between the devices have the same resistance, stray currents will be split onto the two signal wires wires of the cable evenly, and the diffamp will cancel them out as it is only looking voltage between them. Furthermore, an earth conductor in the cable (XLR pin 1) not connected to any signal electronics (just the device chassis) is present to prevent any antenna effects. This provides a simple and reliable way to connect together devices up to 1km apart without worrying about interference sources or where to add transformers. Because of its universality, it became the standard in recording studios, with variations of this signalling path becoming the basis for modern computer networking systems (10BaseT Ethernet was designed to work over CAT3 multicore balanced audio cable).
RCA can work quite well if everything is close together, but that big if makes it quite impractical for studios and cars (due to the noise from the ignition system). If you have any of the conditions that make RCA fail, XLR (or adding transformers in the right places to an RCA setup) can definitely be an upgrade, but if you have the conditions that make RCA work well, it won’t change anything.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
These albums can expose hidden gaps on a CD player that specs and reviews never mention.
Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/10/best-albums-test-cd-player-transport/