XLR interconnects?

Hi Lacee, do I understand right that in your post above, the cable shootout was going on between the source and the preamp?

The preamp is designed to support the balanced standard, but its inputs are high impedance to make it easier to drive. The result is that sources that don't support the standard can still work with the preamp, but you will hear cable artifacts- this sounds to me like what you experienced.

In any event, if the cable is not terminated you can get into differences. I'm pointing this out because like I mentioned earlier, the balanced system exists for the sole reason of eliminating cable artifact. So if you are hearing artifact, the system is not being employed to its fullest extent.

Then I guess companies like Meridian had better get with the program.

Same goes with my Audio Aero Capitole that I run balanced out into the balanced in of my mono blocks.
I can distinguish cable differences, does that mean that the Audio Aero Capitole 24/192 or the Red Dragon or both are not up to industry standards when using their balanced connections?

I always thought that the concept of running balanced was to eliminate or lessen the effects of long runs of cables.
Regular rca interconnects can pick up noise and loose signal if they are longer than 20 feet.

I have great respect for Atmasphere and their products,but I'm having a hard time with the concept that a properly designed balanced system would eliminate the differences between xlr connected balanced cables.
Is Atmasphere the only company that can claim this?
Is everybody else wrong?

There are just so many variables in cable materials, construction and in the quality of XLR's and how they are terminated to the wires,that makes me wonder just how can these things differences be eliminated?

Perhaps a trip to the local Atmasphere dealer and some cable swapping would be a lesson learned one way or the other.

Lacee, this is a good portion of the reason that we saw several of those letters to Stereophile in the mid-90s from 'audio engineers', wherein the engineer was convinced that the high end audio market was composed of charlatans. In the letters, the engineers were complaining that in high end audio there was this huge market of cables- IOW that somehow the cables were responsible for big differences in sound.

The engineers knew this was not true, and so were trying to expose the charlatans. But as you and I know, cables **do** make a difference, so what gives? Why would the engineers go off like that?? The reason is that they use balanced line equipment in the studio, and all of it supports the balanced line standard, whereas in high end audio, very little balanced equipment actually supports the standard. So in their world the cables **don't** make a difference, and not because the gear they use is any less transparent.

So the reality behind these letters was real, but so is that behind high end cables. That reality is simply that when you ditch the termination standard, the cables will have an artifact. As a manufacturer, we recognized this back in the 1980s, and so when we introduced the MP-1, which was the first high end audio balanced line product (1989), we made sure we supported the standard. A lot of other manufacturers have gotten on the bandwagon since then, Audio Research, Aesthetix, BAT, Roland, Wadia, etc., but very few of them acknowledge the standard and so you get cable differences, counter to the raison d'etre of balanced-line operation.

In fact, a number of manufacturers simply have the connection because it is stylish or convenient. So in your supposition, is Atma-Sphere the *only* one that actually supports the standard? -no, we are one of the very few.

In the end, the only person who is right is yourself. What YOU HEAR is what matters...not what SOMEONE ELSE says you SHOULD be hearing. Knowledge, understanding and sound engineering get us most of the way there, but for the rest of the journey? Well, I'm afraid you are on your own my friend:O)

Dave_b, I agree with you 100%. My point is simply that if you want to take advantage of what balanced line operation has to offer, you have to adhere to the balanced line standard to get it.

Not doing so is very similar to running a high performance car on the wrong octane. At that point everyone will agree that the car is not performing at its best.

Imagine IOW that there is a technology that can eliminate cable differences, such that all cables sound excellent, like the best you ever heard. That is what balanced-line operation is for. It works too, but you have to adhere to the standard.