Are Expensive Balanced Interconnects Necessary?

It's not necessary to use balanced ICs unless you need to run longer lengths. Most valve gear uses single ended anyway.

Surprisingly some gear sounds better with single ended and some sounds better with balanced. No rule of thumb just experiment.

However quality is more important than balanced or single ended.

This is an issue questioned forever.

I believe the answer is no if your two components are truly balanced.

Single ended cables is a different story.

@mglik -+1

If the equipment supports the Balanced standard, then cables should have minimal effect on sound reproduction.

Ralph Karsten (atmasphere), would be a good person to PM on this.

Bob

I believe the answer is no if your two components are truly balanced.

I agree they must be truly balanced and AES48 compliant. See article below:

Mike

https://www.ranecommercial.com/kb_article.php?article=2107

I do believe that cables matter. I want to put more money into my phono amplifier and spend more on my RCAs from the turntable (Technics 1200G/Hana ML) and less on the XLR phono preamp to preamp.

Looking to pickup Esoteric E-02 Balanced and have McIntosh MA12000/Sabrina X/REL S812.