I'm on Day 1 with my first audiophile approved balanced interconnects. Here's what I can say:
Denafrips Ares II DAC to Pathos Classic One Mkiii
Original Interconnect was 1m Audioquest Sydney RCA ($200).
Trial Interconnect was 6ft Monoprice Premier Series XLR ($30). Result was a very similar sound that I convinced myself had lost some of the smoothness of the AQ Sydney, but it was very similar.
New Interconnect is 1m Morrow Audio MA4 XLR ($330). Initial impressions are that the sound is clearly different (i.e. I can describe in detail specific things that sound different on a given song). To my ears, I won't be going back.
I wasn't sure what to expect because I've been very happy with the AQ Sydney and with the short 1m interconnect it's easy to argue that I shouldn't hear much of a difference, especially based on how similar the Monoprice XLR sounded to the AQ.