XLR waste of time ?

Nrenter, Its a fact that there are cable guys out there that have no idea how to execute balanced cables, especially ones for phono!

Most arms that have a 5-pin connection are perfect balanced sources, as the wires are shielded by the arm tube itself. This includes all the old BSR, Garrard, Dual and other inexpensive 'tables from the 60s and 70s- they are very easy to convert to balanced without any mods to the arm at all. With newer arms that use the 5-pin DIN, its easy- just change out the cable.

In fact it is even possible to set up an arm with RCAs for true balanced operation, as long as there is a grounding post and the RCA jacks are isolated from ground. We make a special cable for that. It can't be done if the arm ground is tied to the minus of one channel (which causes a ground loop), like you see in some air-bearing arms. BTW it is this ground loop issue which is why most arms employ 5 wires (the 5th for ground) rather than 4.

Let me rephrase the question: What XLR connectors do you (or anyone) view as equal to or better than an Eichmann silver RCA?

Dear Gallant_Diva, You wrote, "XLR circuit has two to three times the complexity of RCA, not to take away the transparency and purity of the signal."

That is the old argument for those who believe that single-ended circuits are per se superior to balanced ones, because of lower parts count. I think the argument is spurious, and I could tell you why but it would take too long. Anyway, in the case of the last few posts, we were talking about the relative merits of the two types of connectors (XLR v RCA), as connectors.

Atmasphere,

You gloss over many things that are not obvious (or intuitive) to the casual reader. I'm not restating to tell *you* anything you do not already know - just want to make sure everyone following understands the differences (subtle, yet very important). This topic seems to cause a bit of confusion.

A "balanced" cable has nothing to do with the termination (XLR, RCA, bare wire, etc.). As Ralph said, a single "balanced" cable has a specific wire geometry - two identical leads (one positive, one negative) surrounded by a shield (ground). *Usually" a balanced cable is terminated by XLR, but you can't be sure without looking "under the covers". But this is the same with amp / pre-amp design - you can't assume it's a balanced design just because it has XLR inputs / outputs.

While many arms ship with a 5-pin DIN connector (and makes it easy to swap in a truly "balanced" cable), my OL Silver did not. I did not want a DIN connector as I wanted a continuous piece of copper from my cartridge clips to my XLR terminations. Unfortunately, OL does not ship the Silver with a "balanced" cable, even when requesting a "balanced" tonearm (they just slap on XLR terminations on their single-ended wire, then charge you £330.43 plus £21.74 for new XLRs fitting for their Linear Flow 2 cable if you want it truly balanced).

Let me rephrase the question: What XLR connectors do you (or anyone) view as equal to or better than an Eichmann silver RCA?

Ignoring for a moment the preference for exotic materials such as silver and gold (and equipment failure, contact or design issues), one can say,in general, that ANY XLR connection will normally perform at least equal to and often better than RCA.

Any good quality XLR from a guitar store (such as Mogami) should at least equal the best RCA.