RCA versus XLR interconnects

Doesn't matter as the electrons don't know nor care what they travel upon. 

Well, it might matter. It depends, yeah.

OCD hi fi guy just did a video on balanced vs RCA

https://youtu.be/tPBitFrmlzo?si=lBq_-oMQSXna2dGw

@eylai777 

Listen to @ghdprentice.  He speaks the truth. XLR work on a higher voltage and will give you a slight increase in volume, but for a one meter IC, I doubt either of us will hear any other details.

All the best.

ghdprentice

... I find the quality of the interconnects are more important than whether they are single ended or balanced. Balanced are a bit louder… but this difference is not likely to net you a performance gain.

It really depends on the design of the equipment. For differentially balanced components that are AES48 compliant, there should be no volume difference between single-ended and balanced. But many differentially balanced components do not observe the AES48 standard, such as most (if not all) ARC amplifiers. In that case, you get 6 dB more gain using the balanced connection. Or, if you prefer, you can look at it as a 6dB improvement in S/N.