Same Old DD
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CAJ, your eplanation was so exemplary, it opened many questions. In fact this entire thread has brought one main question to my mind. I hope someone has an answer or at least some guidance.
Now I will start by admitting that I do not own a balanced (indoor, polite) source, yet, and so most of what I would like to have clarified is purely academic at this stage of my "sitting and listening" adventure.
As an old school sound reinforcement guy, I am fully aware of what balanced lines do for a sound system, so there's not much clarification needed there.
I also must admit that I do not own any new Decware amps. Mine are both from the 2004 era, a few serial numbers apart, but very early generation. SE84C variety. I have LOVED them since I got them and they have served me well, to make the most understated comment possible. I use them set for mono (with what you have called single ended) for ages, basically since about '06 when I acquired my second.
At one point, I had three and actually I used a traditional bi-amped configuration (no need to explain any of bi-amping, tri-amping, quad-amping, etc. to me either. And YES, you are correct, using a subwoofer amp to enhance low frequencies is NOT bi-amping. Period!) with one amp in stereo driving my full rangers, 8" and the two others each set for mono operation driving two fifteens per side for lows. It sounded great! I used them that way for many years.
However, I gave my newest one to a friend who had suffered a housefire and lost everything. I also helped him a bit by giving him a set of some kludged Valencias I built, SAE pre, turntable and a few more audio gadgets and some media and cabling to get him up and going again in his new home.
So, I now have two old Decware SET amps, I use in mono mode. Super simple as you reflected before.
My question is concerning the use of the amps in a balanced scenario, where the input to the amps is configured as in the UFO manual you mentioned and the speaker output is taken across the two positive terminals, instead of the two amp channels being run in series as in the way mono operation was originally posed, with the jumper from negative to positive on the amps speaker terminals and the speaker output signal taken from one positive on one channel and one negative on the other channel.
This old way works fine, BTW. I have used it for ages and even at ridiculously low impedances at one time. Now I just use the two amps in mono driving my two F15 Lii Audio drivers, nothing else.
Sometimes, I have a McIntosh amp driven from the speaker outs through a custom impedance matching cable I made up for "high level" output to line level McIntosh input for powering a subwoofer system. SO, no real affect there to worry about.
My question is, when I finally acquire a balanced source, create the proper signal cable, do I then parallel the two negative speaker outputs and take my speaker signal from the two positive terminals? Is that how I maintain the balanced signal all the way to the speaker terminals?
I know in troubleshooting solid state amps in the past which had mono configurations built in and specifically designed to be balanced from front end to speaker end, they all had a similar arrangement, with the mono configuration requiring that the speaker output come from the two Positive speaker outputs.
Is this a characteristic of balanced signal consistency or is this type of connection a part of how the amplifier is designed internally?
I mean I want to go full balanced in the near future, but the last thing I want to do is blow my beautiful classic, old school SE84Cs!
Any help would be appreciated. I do not yet own a balanced source, but I'm gathering all the information I can, before I have to call Steve and take him away from his important work for my annoying little questions.
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