Running balanced. Difference between XLR vs. RCA.

A piece of gear might be internally balanced (or not), but any gear can only offer balanced connection on XLR-terminated, internally-balanced cables (though not all gear offering XLR connectors actually provides balanced output and/or input!). RCA-terminated cables (and I/O jacks) are inherently single-ended in operation, although it's possible that a cable itself may be capable of carrying a true-balanced signal if it was to be reterminated with XLR connectors (not always the case, though - it depends on the cable design). If your gear has true internally-balanced construction (in other words, has duplicate + and - signal paths from input to output), then it will offer true-balanced output and/or input on the XLR jacks, and you would probably be shortchanging the sound not to avail yourself of balanced connection, so try some XLR-terminated, internally-balanced-construction cables. Even at the 1-meter cable length, if you don't automatically get an audible benefit from the balanced cable itself, it is likely that your gear will operate more transparently if you don't feed it a single-ended signal, because it must be internally converted into a balanced signal prior to the balanced circuitry, thereby adding an unecessary active stage to the gear's operation when employing the RCA jacks. BTW, if you plan on doing head-to-head auditions of RCA and XLR versions of the same cable in your system, just make sure to account for the fact that balanced analog connections will usually give a result about 3dB 'hotter' than the single-ended option, thus requiring that you adjust the volume control to achieve matched levels in order to perform fair sonic comparisions - otherwise, the ear will always favor the slightly louder balanced connection, skewing the test.

In my experience it depends on the quality of the interconnect, the system components and your tonal balance preferences. You may perceive a significant difference or almost none at all. I've seen situations where the difference was remarkable, but sometimes only a trade off.

There is no way to know what will work best without some trial and error. It falls into the same category as trying to suggest the "perfect" brand of interconnect, single ended OR balanced.

For example, I auditioned an Audio Research DAC running balanced into an Elliott EASE preamp. I got a much grainer, flat sound stage with generally poorer overall performance than with the single ended. In both trials I used the same brand and quality level interconnects.

In extended testing with the Aesthetix Io phono and Callisto preamp, the results reversed. The same brands of interconnects were used for both tests, with the balanced providing wider bandwidth and greater dynamics over the single ended.

To make matters worse, some components that have XLR connections are not truly balanced circuits. In this case, the extra parts for a balanced connection only add links to the chain without any advantages that a true balanced design might provide.

I've a/b compared XLR v RCA with my SCD-1 to my pre and agree with Albertporters second last paragraph where I too noticed a greater bandwidth and especially better dynamics over the single-ended connections.

However, I disagree with Albert's last paragraph in that I noticed these improvements in my system in which no component I own is truly balanced. Yet I received those same benefits using XLR/balanced outs and ins.

XLR connections typically employ a 2volt increase over single-ended outputs. So the XLR signal is usually 4 volt where the single-ended is usually 2 volt. That additional 2volts can really add a lot of dynamics (live bite) to what could be an otherwise 'boring' presentation.

-IMO