Does balanced interconnect sound beter than RCA?

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using balanced outputs instead of single-ended RCA's.
In my system, there was much less noise, the hum was eliminated, the imaging and openness was better, and there was much more gain using the XLR's instead of the RCA's.
I was very surprised at the improvements! And, my Parasound HCA 3500 power amp is not a truly balanced amplifier! It has the XLR inputs, but as far as I know they are converted to single-ended inside the amp.
Results may vary with different components and systems, however.

Buscis2 writes:

The relevance of the provided excerpt was more in regards to an overall factual examination of balanced vs. unbalanced interconnection configurations.

Indeed it was an excerpt - from the Balanced Audio Technology web site. One should identify one's sources or one may be accused of plagiarism.

FAQ - balanced operation

Regards,

Some may find my reply strange. In my experience, balanced interconnects as a group lag behind their RCA equivalents. The majority of manufacurers simply solder on an xlr to their current rca terminated model. Balanced circuits send two signals down the cable. The cable must be designed specifically for use as a balanced cable only. Otherwise sonics will greatly suffer in a high-end system.

That said, when properly engineered. A true differential circuit (4 channels of amplification- ie balanced) has the potential to sound superior in some ways. Most often in audiophile terms. Audible will be the perception of more precise imaging and a larger- more open soundstage. Noise rejection/distortion cancelation results in a lower noise floor- ie more low level detail. Often their is also the perception of less warmth and more "neutrality". I would steer away from balanced tube circuits as they are not precise enough. The effect being phase anomolies and other amusical effects.

Metralla, you are absolutely correct. Normally, I provide the whole link as a "url" (see my other threads). For some reason, it would not work. So I did the old "cut & paste". Although, if memory serves, the actual BAT I.D. is somewhere in that excerpt, hence the reason for me stating it as an "excerpt" .

As I stated, I usually provide a link as they take up less space and allow the inquiry to be researched further.

Regards, Ed.

Balanced operation can sound clearly superior and it does not have to be implemented throughout the system. I use a Krell Kav-300CD with a Harmonic Tech pro-silway 2 XLR into the KRC-3 preamp; but the preamp feeds Musical Fidelity X-A200 powers via Audioquest Python RCAs. The results are wonderful on even the most complex orchestrals. But run the '300CD single-ended into the pre and it sounds rather ordinary! Fully balanced designs like these Krells will usually sound best in XLR mode; but some, like the KRC-3, seem more evenhanded