@audphile1 What were the preamp and amp that you connected together?
My point was about preamp and amp that were AES48 compliant and XLR cables not having much sonic differences amongst decent cables. There are some differences but those were not something that made much of a difference.
However, removing all my gear, except the tiny AHB2 amps, from in-between the speakers because I use low cost long XLRs made a huge difference in the sound quality of my system.