Balanced cables

gdnrbob.....who is Ralph?

Atma-Sphere is Ralph Karsten, http://www.atma-sphere.com/AboutUs

Depending on which amp and speakers I have setup, there is a definite preference for the XLR cable between preamp and amp.  The cable chosen is a different brand between the two setups. The remainder of the systems cabing remains unchanged.

Yikes, that long of a run will be really pricey for a quality cable.  The hard part is there is not a best cable period.  It will take time and a few candidates to find the right one for you and your system.  Maybe the Cable Company has some long runs of different XLRs you can try.

You will get everyone’s version of the best cable, unfortunately that won’t help you one bit.  I won’t tell you mine.

Question, is this a new problem or something that’s been there awhile and finally bothering you to the point of doing something about it?

dlcockrum-Went to the Ayre website to check the gain specs on the Ayre preamps. Its very common that companies making preamps with both single ended and XLR outputs will adjust the gain higher to the XLR and lower to the single ended outputs. The Ayre KX-5 has a maximum of only 4 db's to the single ended and 10 db's to the XLR's which is a big difference with short runs. This is why the XLR "sounds better" since the gain is much stronger than the single ended. If the single ended gain was at 10 db's and the XLR at 4 db's then the RCA output would sound much better. This has nothing to due with the type of cables, just higher gain that makes a difference. Doesn't take rocket science to figure that out.

Audiozen,

My intent was to state that I hear significant differences BETWEEN different XLR cables, not between the SE connections and the XLR connections.

I am no rocket scientist (and neither are you) but I am well aware of the gain differences between SE and differentially balanced topologies.

Dave