New Emotiva UPA-1 mono-block 300 watts/4 ohms - $299

[kexodusc]

Emotiva stated themselves that they were not truly balanced and I read a review somewhere that stated that they were not truly balanced. And I don't think that at that price that it would be. They are still excellent buys and I will probably buy one to go with my MMG's along with a used tube preamp.

Hi Blackraven,

Is it possible you may have confused pieces of equipment? My memory was that Mr. P talked to Emotiva and they mention the CDP wasn't fully balanced throughout internal circuitry, but I've never heard anything about the amps. What review was it you were looking at? It would be nice to know for sure so people that are insistent on fully balanced gear only don't get mislead into buying something not for them. There's enough trickery in this industry as is and I hope Emotiva isn't contributing to that.

I'm not an engineer, but I don't think there's any way to make an amp "not truly balanced" with the XLR's - there's no line level output stage. With amps specifically (pre-amps and sources are other matters) it either recieves the XLR signal or doesn't...balanced ouput signals are very different than RCA's so the amp would have to be capable of accepting the opposite-polarity signals. I'm not aware of any home audio amp on the planet that receives an XLR signal and then doesn't convert it to an unbalanced signal on the way to the speakers. Can anyone think of any?

[Glen B]

Hi Blackraven,I'm not an engineer, but I don't think there's any way to make an amp "not truly balanced" with the XLR's

Yes, the non-inverted and inverted signals are fed into dual op-amps and the outputs are summed. You still reap the benefit of noise reduction without the entire circuit needing to be full differential. There is no deception involved. The benefits of an amplifier being "fully balanced" throughout is a subjective matter.