Would you sleep better at night if.....

And I thought it was bad having 40 feet of interconnect! I am no expert, but my understanding is that running balanced vs. single-ended is better for long runs of interconnects, in terms of better low level detail and maybe a little in the highs. I don't think it will improve the bass, though. If you have very little noise now, I don't know if it's worth it, although maybe someone out there can say if the Classe equipment is light years better when run balanced?

Rcprince has already touched on some important parts, I might add that unless your components are TRULY balanced, there may actually be a loss by going to balanced connectors.

Some equipment appears to be balanced, but the jack is supplied as a convenience for those who want balanced or already own the cable. Often the connection inside the chassis runs over to the RCA jacks and then on to the circuit. I am not saying this is the case with Classe equipment, I don't know.

I am running 40 feet runs of Purist Dominus RLS single ended RCA, from my preamp to my mono amps. The times I have tested balanced against single ended showed improvement only once in several trials. The time the balanced worked was between two identical brands of gear, both absolute TRUE balanced designs, with the cable carrying the signal from the main output to a stepped volume control. Obviously this was a hyper critical application, and even then it was a fairly small gain.

Decide what is best for your gear, even consider a call to the factory before dropping the bucks. The money may be better spent on another piece in the system. In any case, please post results.

gerryn: you need to get an interior decorator to design some really good-looking "socks" or multi-hued prophylactics to cover your ic's, so you can pull 'em outta' the walls. by doing so, you'd probably save at least 5 meters of required length. if you can't or are unwilling to leave your ic's visible to the world, i'd not bother with xlr's. -cfb