RNC-not balanced...who cares?

[A-Barr]

Good points, but...

Ever try to use an unbalanced/high Z mic in a pro application? Totally unacceptable noise level, in my opinion. This is obviously less of an issue with line level gear that doesn't get 50 db of gain slapped on it, but it can illustrate the difference.
Common mode rejection aside, which I agree, is not really that big a deal, the +4 level of balanced gear gives you a much hotter signal and better sig:noise ratio than -10db unbalanced gear. Or am I wrong?
I've used unbalanced stuff but didn't like the build-up of noise that happened in my recordings. I suppose if I had balanced power or at least cleaner power than I do, this would be less of a problem.
And maybe I'm paranoid and delusional, but I think guitars do suffer when they run through 20 foot cables versus a 6 foot cable or so.
But again, if you have really super-awesome cables, I could see how this would be less of an issue.
The thing is that high impedance signals are much more prone to any stray capacitance than are low impedance signals, that is a fact. Depending on your situation, you may have more or less stray capacitance to suck out your top end and using very short or very high quality cables will help reduce it.
Just my $.02.

[emrr]

The point of the guitar analogy is that they do okay, and they are high impedance, which is 100's of times more prone to interference than low impedance. High impedance sources like shorter runs because of cable capacitance. Low impedance sources overcome cable capacitance much more greatly than high-Z, which loses treble more quickly with increasing distance. Low impedance mics can run hundreds of feet before losing high frequency.

I've used unbalanced/high Z mics plenty of times; they work fine if you treat them like a guitar and plug them into a DI, observe the need for a short cable run, etc. Now, the crappy step-up transformer in the mic is easily a source of poor performance, as is the shielding of the mic case itself; I don't think it has anything to do with the transmission method once it gets outside of the mic.

I see I'm echoing some of your comments in different language; I'll leave it in.

Signal to noise is really unrelated to operating levels, I believe. It is primarily related to gain added to original noise floor, added to noise added within the gain elements.

Something like an RNC is a low impedance unbalanced device, and really unrelated in principle to the hi-Z guitar type device. I don't find noise from unbalanced gear that I can attribute specifically to the lack of balancing. I would be more inclined to attribute it to the gear being crappy and noisy internally.

Many people, for instance, buy DBX 161 compressors (unbalanced only) and like them better than the 160. Many people also add transformers to them for balancing purposes, and like that better than the 160 too. One could buy some of Edcor's cheap and good transformers for balancing an RNC/etc if it was really necessary. Costs: about $45 additional for both channels. The iron is going to be a lot bigger than the RNC itself.

[A-Barr]

Gotcha. I didn't know low-z unbalanced lines existed, though I'm glad they do! In that case, I think you're right that rf or whatever hash picked up over cable runs is not significant, especially in home studios where they don't have a chance to get too long. And I would rather have an unbalanced signal than one that was balanced by a low-quality opamp, or even a low quality transformer. What it really comes down to is that each piece of gear is different and you can't really judge them by any "specs," but by their character and how they get the job done.

[emrr]

Amen, power to the people! Let's make records! If it works it ain't broke! Or maybe it is, but maybe it works enough to get the tracks finished anyway! etc etc. carry on....

[rhythm ranch]

Amen, power to the people! Let's make records! If it works it ain't broke! Or maybe it is, but maybe it works enough to get the tracks finished anyway! etc etc. carry on....