XLR interconnects?

Ralph those records and most all the classic and jazz cut in the 50's and early 60's sound better than today, but I wouldn't say it was because of balanced cables.
I think the fact that the equipment was all tubes back then and you or all people know that tubes rule.
Also, the engineer probably just rode the volume control.
They didn't have all the noise gates and limiters and external electronic crap that they play around with today.
Those old recordings were about as true to real as you could get.
Now what amplification were they using back then?
It was probably push pull and transformer coupled workhorse amps of the Williamson variety, Macs at best.
Certainly nothing with the quality of parts or the technology of todays best amps your's included.
Yet, like you say very good sound and with 200 foot runs of generic cables.
So I guess it doesn't matter what cables or amps you use, as long as both are configured for a true balanced circuit?
I owned the S30, please don't tell me it sounds just the same as your top of the line mono blocks.

Lacee - old recordings sound like shit in comparison to best current recordings. You could even tell by the amount of distortion and noise what decade they come from. To add insult to injury they digitized them long time ago when high quality low jitter clocks were not available. As a result they contain jitter that is impossible to remove.

The fact that certain studio uses long runs of generic cables doesn't bother me. I'm not even interested why they do that - it could be ignorance or lack of money or a believe that we'll buy any crap (it's true - look what they release!). I cannot help it and can only improve things on my end.

Inductance, capacitance, dielectric absorption, metal purity play role in balanced cables the same way as in unbalanced cables. The only difference is external noise immunity and locking connectors to prevent disaster.

Some old recordings sound like shit,I will agree,
that all new recordings are superior I do not agree.

Most if not all the mags that I read, rave about the re-issued modern pressings of vintage jazz recorded on vintage gear.And I have to agree.

The sound off those old masters is the reason why the new re-issues sound so good.
However there have been instances where over stressed pressing plants have run into problems now that vinyl has made a comeback.
Some 200 gram pressings had serious problems, the old original pressings were better.

The reason why many of the old recordings sound so real is because of the minimal amount of dicking around with electronic toys.
All the gimmicks they use on modern recording sessions today weren't around way back when.
In fact most of the modern recordings are not done in real time .
Individual musicians "phone in" their parts and it is all pasted together with computer programs.
Not very many recordings are done live, off the floor anymore.
I will say that I agree that when done this way modern recordings can sound good.
But not many are and not many do.

Adding a touch of reverb and maybe tweaking the tone was about the only tools the old guys had to play with.

Keeping it simple,most often sounds the best.
As do the first takes of a live recording.

Listening to some of the old classic jazz lp's, cut live for the most part, still sound more like the real thing to me than most of the cd's I have bought in the last 20 years.

If everything you play thru your system sounds good,then there is something going on that is masking the differences.

"If everything you play thru your system sounds good,then there is something going on that is masking the differences."

Lacee - absolutely agree. I'm not into vinyl for the same reason I'm not into drugs - addictive and expensive. Is vinyl really coming back? - I thought it was dead.

On many occasions memory plays trick on us and we remember good sound of 60s, 70s, etc. People often believe that gear was better. Why would it be? Just look at HDTV. Nobody sane would say that picture was better in sixties.

I often listen to old recording praised by other people on this forum for sound quality and find them less transparent, distorted and often noisy. The good popular example would be The Beatles recordings. If you listen to first ones and the last ones you'll see progress audio recording made. They started playing out on 30W Vox amps that had tons of distortion not because they liked it but because nothing else was available.

Today's technology, like CD, is often a compromise of quality for practicality but is constantly improving. I just read Stereophile review of $17k Meridian 808.2 CD player. John Atkinson says that it's the finest player he ever heard (it should be for $17k).

As for the quality of the recordings, I noticed that while dynamic range of some recordings is preserved, most of recordings have very compressed dynamic range. We represent very small buying power and sales are oriented towards people who listen on boom boxes.

Yes music was mostly dumbed down in quality and content over the years.
The more way you could alter the signal the better it must be was the way things went in most studios.
Remember the Aphex Aural Exciter?
It was suppossed to be the best thing you could process a recording with since sliced cheese.
But that's what it was ,sliced cheese.
It is long gone.

But a lot of other toys filled in the gap.

The old engineers had to rely on getting it right the first time, and so did the musicians.
It wasn't about fix it in the mix.

Not so today.
You mention the early Beatles recordings sounding lousy.
That's not the recording, it's the pressings.
Have you given a listen to the Beatles Love cd ?
Modern tech has really done a great job here.
Yet most of the stuff was recorded on 4 tracks and looped together.
But Sir Martin was a master, as this cd illustrates.
If it wasn't good on those old master tapes to begin with this cd would not sound as good as it does today.

There are many more examples from Rudy van Gelder that show how a good recording can stand the test of time.

As for most people listening to boom boxes, I believe they are now buying turntables and the very same vinyl records I am talking about.