AES48 , is there a test to determine?

@gdnrbob ,
Thanks for providing your experience using the XLR cables, very interesting and of course first hand knowledge is best. I’m still using all RCAs at this point.

It has always stuck in my brain that Ralph mentioned what we have been discussing.
George

@koestner You likely have seen this but I will post here anyways. It explains how your preamp is wired.

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/balanced-vs-unbalanced-analog-interfaces

Yyz, thanks for the link. I’m thinking my dac and amp are just the 4volt “balanced” type. So I will have to avoid the Benchmark xlr cables, and choose a more common type.

It was partially your high opinion of the HPA4 that lead me to try purchase one. Since the HPA4 is AES48 even though it has both balanced and single ended outputs without a switch (please comment Ralph)

Without a look under the hood I suspect that this preamp does not support the standard because it has RCA outputs that seem to be in parallel with the balanced outputs. A DVM would answer the question easily enough. Again, the balanced standard ignores ground- its literally not part of the audio circuit. Here is a nice primer about balanced connections:https://www.ranecommercial.com/kb_article.php?article=2107
As you can see, in a balanced connection the ground is chassis ground, not the audio ground. An RCA needs the sleeve connection to the same as the audio ground, not the chassis (which is why you usually see insulating washers with RCA connectors). Since the sleeve is audio ground and not the chassis, this would mean that the XLR ground (pin 1) is at audio ground. This is why AES48 is usually not supported if you see both types of outputs together. But it is possible to get around this by having additional circuitry driving the RCA output that is in parallel with that driving the XLR outputs. Then AES48 can be supported. That is why I say 'without a look under the hood', and why I've been careful to employ caveats.

OK thanks Ralph. The Benchmark website writes about this extensively, so I guess they are doing "something" to make it happen. I'm not technical enough to explain how, and I'm sure you're too busy to explore some other company's claims. It doesn't seem to be that important anymore as I have determined that my DAC and amp do not support the AES48 standard. So it seems I can not benefit from the special XLR cabling that does not use a ground.