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Pass Labs X260.8

I'm a slave to this hobby

I have been running my Sonus Faber Electa Amator III with a Pass Labs XA25, and it sounds great. I listen to mostly phono, Linn LP12 and Pass Labs XP15 phono pre.    

Although the XA25 is a sick amp and runs way above 50 wpc at 4 ohms, I could not help but think I needed more headroom. Anyway, I pulled the trigger on a pair of demo 260.8s. Yes, way more than what I need, but screw it, I worked my ass off this year.

   So, currently, I have my stereo rack on the right side of my bedroom, but the speakers are on a 90 degree wall, 10' away. I have very nice Morrow SP5 bi wire speaker cables that run 26' down into the basement, and then up to the speakers. I have 3' of slack to move the speakers out from the wall when serious listening. For casual listening I move them back closer to the wall, so my wife doesn't kick them over out of frustration when walking by.  My question is, do I leave the SP5 speaker cables at 26' and place the 260.8s in the rack, OR purchase 26' balanced cables, and have the 260.8s on the floor between the speakers with shorter speaker cables. Yes, my wife will hate this arrangement, but because I have been relegated to the corner of our bedroom for my ridiculous hobby , I may be willing to die on that hill. But it really comes down to the best sound. I sit 8' away from the speakers and they are 8' apart when 30" off the wall. 26' balanced cables or 26' speaker cables. The general consensus will be longer speaker cables, but I always see mono blocks right next to the speakers....

 

 

 

 

128x128marktheshark
williewonka
3,099 posts
 

@jetter - WRT

he states that there is little difference in sound from one XLR interconnect to another.

He’s probably correct for many commercial products, mainly because they all conform to the more generally accepted cable geometries (i.e. two wires inside a braided neutral and they use similar wire.

However, if you get into DIY you can improve performance over the commercial products by using SOTA wires and insulations and a more unusual cable geometry

Unfortunately many of the DIY designs do not lend themselves to Cables longer than 5-6 ft.

But if that’s all that is required then you can improve perofrmance significantly by using designs like this one

Cables like these offer superior dynamics, details, clarity and imaging regardless of whether they are single ended or XLR

Of course there is the "Balanced vs. Single ended" debate, but from what I have heard from many others that have compared the single ended Helix DIY to the XLR version - there is little between them - some prefer XLR and some prefer single ended .

So this leads me to believe that it then becomes more a case of, which cable type better suits the connected components.

Regards - Steve

marktheshark's avatar
marktheshark OP
55 posts
 

So, if in fact, XLR cables all seem to be the same. Where would they fall into range of single ended cables? Are they over all better, average, worse than unbalanced?

 

ghdprentice
7,438 posts
 

All XLR cables are not the same, all single ended are not the same. Performance of single ended versus XLR are highly dependent on each component. I have owned a lot of the equipment you own or slightly different models. The most important parameter is the sound of the interconnect or cable first… will you hear a sound quality difference between using the XLR and single ended (other than volume… which is not good or bad as it doesn’t change any characteristic in your system), maybe, maybe not. If your going to do a long run… I would use XLR, but it might not sound better… the brand is what is important… how it sounds with your gear.

 

For forty years I chose single ended. First because it was all there was, later because my other stuff was single ended… but times are moving on. Now I have all XLR… I will buy all XLR in the future. It is figuring out the best brand / model for your system.

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