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The pinnacle of headphone listening, here you'll find the best balanced headphones.

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Learning Center: Balanced Headphone Drive

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Balanced Headphone Drive

Balanced AKG K701 You may have heard some good things about 'Balanced Headphone Drive'. Audiophile headphone aficionados agree that balanced-drive is the ultimate nirvana of headphone listening, the cat's meow of cans, the creme de la creme of personal audio systems, the highest of the 'high end'.  HeadRoom was first to design balanced headphone systems with our BlockHead Balanced Amp way back in 1999. And we've made even further sonic strides since!

In essence, 'balanced-drive' is an amplifier design scheme that delivers 'balanced' equivalent and opposing [negative/positive] audio signals to each side of the headphone driver coils. Balanced-drive delivers a significant increase in audio performance due to the doubling of slew rate and voltage swing power, a massive reduction of THD distortion components, and the virtual absence of crosstalk at the headphones due to the elimination of the common ground plane. The end acoustic result lends an extremely expansive, 'open-toned' quality to your headphones, as well as very transparent and refined musical detail, tightly textural low bass, and perfectly pronounced mid-ranges. Many music lovers say its the closest headphones can come to sounding like a 'room speaker' listening experience.

How Do I Get a Balanced Headphone System?

First, you MUST have a balanced headphone amp and your headphones MUST be recabled for balanced drive to XLR left/right stereo connections (as shown pictured above). Balancing headphones is typically an aftermarket procedure performed here at HeadRoom by our in-house recabling experts which changes the headphone connection from a standard plug to stereo left/right balanced 3-pin XLR connections.

You may purchase a brand-new set of reference headphones recabled for balanced drive from us, or you may send in your existing headphones to HeadRoom to be recabled for balanced drive operation. Recabling procedures are only available on certain headphones, please visit Upgrading Your Headphones for more information.

Learn more about Balanced Headphone Drive by clicking on the articles below:

Balanced Drive FAQ

Balanced Drive Article Series

Fully Differential Balanced-Drive Sources