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Switched from RCA to XLR Interconnects - WOW

I just received a set of Pangea True Balanced Premier SE XLR interconnects from Audio Advisor and connected them between my phono preamp to my amp.
I really didn't expect to hear any major difference, but man was I wrong.  The sound quality is night and day improved over my previous cables (Clear Day Cables RCA cables).  The improvement in bass response is amazing, and the soundstage got about 2 feet wider and deeper.  Mids and highs are also more clearly defined, and the backgrounds are about as black as I have ever heard.   What also surprised me is how much hotter the signal is into the amp.  I had to turn the volume down quite a bit to equal levels I usually listed to with the previous cables.
FYI, the preamp is a Parasound JC3+ and the amp is a Lyngdorf TDAI-3400.  
I'm really impressed.  I had always wanted to try using balanced cables but this is the first amp I have owned that had balanced inputs.  
128x128snackeyp
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
I believe you had to turn down the volume because balanced will get you 6db more signal (and a lot less noise). Perhaps @almarg or @atmasphere can give a better explanation, but the gist is more signal, quieter and less dependency on what the cable itself is than w/RCAs. If you were running a long pair, you might even hear a bigger difference. Cheers,
Spencer
snackeyp's avatar
snackeyp OP
455 posts
 
@sbank 
Why would longer cables be better than short ones in this case?
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
I'm not saying longer would be better shorter. I'm saying that in longer runs, rcas are more susceptible to noise so the difference between noiser long rcas and long balanced would be more noticeable because the balanced would greatly reduce that noise. Sorry for any confusion! Cheers,
Spencer
dill
2,513 posts
 
Now try some Clear Day balanced cables ...
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