> I don't think that this is going to be a problem in any of these devices,
> because their balanced output signals have already been amplified at this
> point. A drop of 6 dB would therefore not make a difference in terms of noise
> (one can easily compensate for that by increasing the gain of the preamp or
> the recorder).
John,
I just realized that my previous reply was not correct (it is really a complex
issue ;-).
Taking only one of the two (amplified) balanced output rails could still lead
to a degradation of the noise performance. So, I believe that feeding the
difference of the two into the unbanlanced input would be better in terms of
noise. I seems to me however that this kind of "unbalancing" is not available
on the SoundDevices preamps.
One thing that one might try is to connect the unbalanced line input of the
recorder to the XLR pins 2 and 3 of the preamp output (rather than to ground
and pin 2 or 3). Such a floating arrangement might work if at least one of the
units (either the preamp or the recorder) is battery powered. That way, one
would just record the difference between the two rails. But I have never tried
that and I'm not sure if it really works in practice...
Regards,
Raimund
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