XLR waste of time ?

Jimjoyce25 All the subtle design parameters, like cable geometry, purity of materials, conductors spacing, the use of platings in connectors and the like vanish as variables when you use the low impedance balanced line system.

In high impedance single ended setups, all these things make a difference and bring you closer to the truth of the music, as you have experienced.

IOW, in single-ended systems the cables are a sort of 'hidden cost' and are paramount to the performance of the cartridge or preamp in that system. In a balanced setup, the cable cost and impact it has on the sound is insignificant. In short (if done correctly, as we have seen from prior posts that is an issue) its a transformation to go from RCAs to balanced.

I share Ralph's philosophy on this one. If you buy the right equipment and match it correctly then who cares about cables.

Some equipment designs do not need $100's or $1000's of dollars of cabling to perform perfectly - nor is this type equipment necessarily less resolving.

The important thing is to get equipment that is designed to preserve every detail on the recording while adding as little distortion or noise as possible and whilst minimizing the effect of all extraneous variables (cabling, operating temperature, AC power, humidity, RF/EMI interference etc. etc.) Equipment that is so sensitive that it is influenced by nearly anything and everything is a liability IMHO - it is simply not well designed for accurate audio reproduction of the source.

Frankly, it is a bit of a travesty that the serious design challenges faced by world class audio designers to build outstanding components is even compared or discussed in the same conversation as an piece of wire with two connectors on the end.

There are several orders of magnitude difference in the design & technology required by the component designer versus those simply making cables....but you would not know this from reading the marketing claims of those who just make cables. Some cables seem to run on some kind of 22nd century dilithium crystal technology...

Sounds like more philosophy to me, unconfirmed and untested by experience.

Yes you are right. It is mostly the tin-eared folks in pro audio that exclusively use balanced XLR for everything. The philosophy of head bangers with PA speakers is meaty connectors that are unbreakable when used by gorillas. They would be unable to test anything in an A/B comparison anyway, as all of them are deaf from listening too loud for too long.

JJ25,

Keep us posted with what you learn. However, you do realize that your experement does not isolate your cable design as the only variable (which means your test will prove nothing). If you don't understand why, either you have not read the above posts, or you do not comprehend the above posts.

There are no absolutes, and I am 100% certain of this fact.