Balanced or unbalanced cable?

[Gymrat76]

Currently outputting sound/music from my PC via USB to my M2Tec Young DAC. The output from the DAC to speakers is via RCA only, which is unbalanced (RCA’s are unbalanced?).

If I’m getting speakers/monitors that accept balanced inputs (XLR or 1/4” TRS), would just using an RCA to 1/4 TRS or RCA to XLR cable be likely to introduce noise and produce lower levels because I’m using an unbalanced cable on a balanced input? Any solution for this if I don’t want to change existing DAC and speaker choice? Thanks

 

[mankindmotion]

How long is your cable run? The differences in noise levels between unbalanced and balanced is only noticeable for long cable runs.

 

[Gymrat76]

How long is your cable run? The differences in noise levels between unbalanced and balanced is only noticeable for long cable runs.

Thanks. Pretty short as they are on my desktop. Less than 3m per side. Just concerned as I’ve been reading up on hissing issues with the JBL LSR305s that I’m contemplating to get which are mostly caused by signal noise in the cables I’m guessing.

What about the drop in the levels? Any way to compensate for that?

 

[wwenze]

Balanced connection reduces common-mode noise, which is not necessarily due to distance. The computer sound that you hear when connected to a speaker, but not when you connect headphones to computer, is an example of common-mode noise.

Most of LSR305's hissing seems to be self-generated however.

Voltage is not a problem; +4 dBu is around 1.2Vrms, while most soundcards output 2.0Vrms

 

[Gymrat76]

So from my setup above it’s likely that I will experience hissing if I go for the LSR305s? May impact my decision to switch in that case..

 

[Gymrat76]

Update: Got the LSR035s and connected to my DAC with a RCA>1/4 TS cable (unbalanced). Set input sensitivity of the speaker to -10dB.

Everything works well, no hiss.. breaking them in now