First Foray into XLR

Use Mogami, Canare, and Belden cables in my small studio and all are quality XLRs. Prefer Belden for audiophile interconnects as it sounds brighter and more transparent. Mogami will suffice as well.
Again, if you visit Blue Jeans Cable you can read about the relative merits of various XLR types. Canare, for example, has more effective noise shielding than other cables -- but at a frequency cost. Gearslutz has threads devoted to cable topics and there you can find the pro studio perspective.
Have compared XLR to RCA connections in my systems and XLR wins handily -- you can distinguish the difference easily if the surrounding equipment (and especially the speakers) are high enough quality.

@english210 ………………..


Your Odyssey Stratos amp is NOT a balanced amp.  Klaus put the balanced connectors on the amp because there was a demand for it.  If you look inside the amp, you will see they are connected to the RCA inputs.  You are wasting your money going to XLR cables with that amp.  I know because I owned one for 7 years and tried it.  Single ended sounded better!

Thanks for providing that info, Stereo5. So I would think that in this case the word "bridged" in the amp’s description refers to internal jumpers (i.e., connections) between the RCA and XLR connectors, as I’ve occasionally seen the term "bridged" being used to mean "jumpered."

Therefore the signal pin on the RCA connector is presumably jumpered to one of the two signal pins on the XLR connector, most likely pin 2, and the ground shell of the RCA connector is presumably jumpered to the ground pin (pin 1) of the XLR connector. But a significant concern I would have is that since the amp apparently doesn’t provide a switch to select between the XLR and RCA inputs, the other signal pin on the XLR connector, pin 3, might also be connected to the ground pin, or to another ground point within the amp.

If that is the case, connecting the amp to the A/V Processor via XLR cables would short the signal provided on pin 3 by the A/V P to ground. While some components can tolerate that (and there are a few designs that would require it), some cannot (see this thread for example), and in some cases damage to the component providing the signal could conceivably even result, eventually if not sooner.

That issue would not arise, of course, if the design leaves pin 3 unconnected. But in that case it would seem unlikely that going to XLR cables would provide any benefit, as Stereo5 indicated. Unless, that is, the sonics of the A/V P’s XLR outputs are superior to those of its RCA outputs, which I suspect is unlikely in this particular case.

In any event, it sounds like an inquiry to Klaus would be in order before connecting these components via XLR, to clarify how pin 3 is handled.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks for the info. I will see what I can out. Thanks...

should I amend the question to ‘what cables of either configuration would people here recommend to someone who’s sceptical but willing to try something more than freebie cables’?

I’m impressed with the 2 channel performance given my current receiver. Imaging is wide and relatively deep, and high. Music as a whole is involving, with pace, rhythm, and no fatigue, individual notes well defined. I’m curious as to what else might be there.....

Listen to Al.

I say Mogami 2534 or Canare 4E6S with ETI connectors. Both are star quad configurations, which suppresses RF. I have come to prefer Mogami because the shield is easier to unravel and terminate, and also because Canare uses teflon dielectric, which releases toxic fumes when heated above 460F.

Both are very high class microphone cables. Terminate the shield on one end only, usually the amplifier end. I use these cables on a high end system and have never been convinced of a reason to change.