I once decided to experiment with impedance balancing. The only unbalanced gear I had was a little tape machine. According to the service manual it had an output impedance of at least 10k. So I followed the routine, disconnecting the ground wire of the unbalanced source from ground, and connecting it to cold of the balanced destination through a resistor of 10k.
So, I did notice an improvement in terms of noise performance, but it was a very smal improvement. I then tried hooking up the ground wire from source directly to the cold of the destination, and that made a huge improvement.
Anyone know why? I found it counterintuitive, since (in my world) matching the source impedance would make it behave more like a balanced system. Or am I missing something? Was i also supposed to take the destination impedance into account?
This was just a small experiment, but left me with some interesting thoughts...
Emil
So, I did notice an improvement in terms of noise performance, but it was a very smal improvement. I then tried hooking up the ground wire from source directly to the cold of the destination, and that made a huge improvement.
Anyone know why? I found it counterintuitive, since (in my world) matching the source impedance would make it behave more like a balanced system. Or am I missing something? Was i also supposed to take the destination impedance into account?
This was just a small experiment, but left me with some interesting thoughts...
Emil