CRT Question - Old Calculator

Domestic consumer-level audio gear doesn't have balanced connections for the simple reason that like much else in Our World of Technology, audio came out of the vacuum tube era when things were a lot more expensive - and balanced circuits require essentially twice the active & passive circuitry, wiring & switching, which increases the costs. These days, it's not such a big deal, but back when tubes were the only game going, it was real money (and space!) to double the tube complement. That, and proper balanced lines require low impedances - and about the only way to manage that with tubes is to use coupling transformers, which are also quite expensive if you want real bandwidth and linearity. So single-ended was the thing, and since the newer solid-state world had to get along well with the huge installed base of legacy tube gear, they stuck with SE designs. And while single-ended lines have their own inherent shortcomings, what really sucks is that the idiot RCA connector - introduced sometime in the 30s - became the universal standard. Just about anything would be an improvement - heck, BNC would be superb for audio, and it's not like the connectors are all that much more expensive once the machinery is rolling them out by the thousands. On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 5:15 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: