I recently bought an ART Balanced to unbalanced gadget (a 1:1 transformer inside) and was impressed by what it did. The reason I got it was because Both my old Dacmagic and the more recent incarnation have balanced outputs and this is said to be a better interface than good old single ended. In the past I have used a DIY balanced to unbalanced module that I built years ago from a kit purchased from White Noise a small home based DIY industry run by a Dr White. Over the years the bits I used on these had been plundered for other DIY projects and they were bereft of most of what was required to make them work!. The ART was about £20squid delivered which seemed a bit of a bargain to me. Nice case and well put together and did not make my any squarks, bangs or smoke . In fact IMO it improved the musical experience.

This got me thinking about Pro style equipment that has a million bells and whistles and does balanced to unbalanced and unbalanced to balanced and juggles 15 balls in the air whilst whistling Colonel Bogey! Searching around I came across the Behringer Ultramatch Pro.

www.behringer.com/assets/SRC2496_M_EN.pdf

All that you need to know is in the link above, and in the full manual that you have to download as well.

I Googled around for sellers and found the cheapest at £115 (some were as high as £265) from Woodbrass in France. Delivery was said to be 5 days....it was here in 3. I am still finding out how a lot of it works, but what I have used is very impressive (IMO of course) my favourite being the internal AKM Dac. I initially used it as an Upsampler through the more recent Dacmagic. It sounded better than the DM on it's own. You can also select "Dither" and bit rates as well as the sampling rate. I was using 96kHz and 20bit. However the internal Dac is, to me, in another league

The analogue outs are XLR sockets, good job that over the years I have amassed a shed load of leads and had some I could use. After many years the White Noise balanced to unbalanced modules were resurrected and all the bits missing replaced. This was needed to use the analogue outs in order to hear the internal AKM Dac. Well it well worth the effort. I don't know about you but over the 100 years or so I have been messing with this stuff I have often stumbled on a sound that says "my god - this is it, suddenly all my music makes sense - even the "difficult" stuff that I used to turn off". I have reached that place many times. only to destroy it in an instant when attempting to better it. Here I was again.....all the planets aligned.....everything in it's right and proper place.....a magical experience. Now you will probably be asking yourself if I he has had a little too much of the fermented grape, or is he just barking mad. The answer is both, but to differing degrees But I suspect a lot of you will know where I am coming from, you know that Eureka moment.

What does £115 buy you these days?....I recently spent more than that on a meal for 4 and what did I have to show for it the next day? It was not until I had bought the Ultramatch that I stumbled on a page dedicated to wringing the most out of it. However this means cannibalising it to such a degree that it will not fit in the smart slim case that it comes in. If you want to know how to make it better have a look at the link below. I will not be taking a soldering iron to it. I have been there, done that and burnt the T-Shirt. I am quite happy with it the way Behringer intended......and.... No...I have no connection whatsoever with the manufacturer.

lampizator.eu/lampizator/TRANSPORT/behringer/Behringer.html