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The great myth of the XlR

Hi

Is it just me that likes the sound of RCA terminated cables better ?

Pleas dont come with the technical reason why xlr are superior im talking purely about how the sound.

(I know with fully balanced amps and cd players xlr are the way to go.)

In my experince rca cables sounds more musical pure and simple and have a more solid soundstage.

Xlr`s seem less musical but bigger soundstage more transperant but in a bad way.

Eny one that are hearing the same as me ?

thanks
tda2200
kenscollick's avatar
kenscollick
278 posts
 
Whatever works for you if that is your conclusion you will sleep well at night. I personally found that the tonal qualities change very little between the two connections. The benefit of a balanced connection is less noise with a small increase in volume. Plus comparing different brand of cables is definately a contributing factor.
tpsonic
1,092 posts
 
Having been and still am, a big Omega Mikro fan.They will not built their cables with XLRs.They say they have not found an XLR up to their sonic requirements.But,wouldn't you know that my new phono section operates better with XLRs and so I have had the arm terminated with them.I preferred not to use an adapter due to sonic degradation.
mlsstl
1,452 posts
 
There are reasons you might prefer your RCA cables over XLR. One is that some XLR hookups on consumer equipment are not true balanced circuits. In other words, they equipment manufacturer has "faked it" in order to cash in on a trend in this area. A poorly faked circuit could sound worse.

Even with a true balanced circuit, a XLR connection typically has higher output (6 dB) than a single ended RCA connection. At worst this could overload the input circuit of the preamp or amp which would give a noticeable edge to the sound. At the other end, it may still be clean, but it might have you listening louder than you normally might due to where you are visually inclined to set your volume control. These factors would need to be closely examined before declaring a true sonic difference in the cables or cable format themselves.

I'm in the camp that when we hear a true difference (not a psychological one) there are always technical factors that can explain. They may not be the obvious or trendy explanations, but there will be an answer somewhere.
bigtee
803 posts
 
You would really have to compare the same cable in XLR and RCA configurations to know anything about the difference. Comparing different brands and different cables within brands is pretty worthless IMO.
It costs money to really experiment and find truths, something I did for years and finally got tired of it.
They're all sorts of reasons why things do what they do.
The bottom line is do what satisfies you. Look at all the cables for sell on this site! Cables get blamed for a lot of ills that are not their fault. I think a lot of people try and "Tune" with cables which is a mistake IMO. You end up getting a system to sound closer to what you want some of the time.
No cable is absolutely neutral and can only screw up the sonic picture. Cables cannot "Improve" sound over the original signal. They can "Adjust" it more to your liking but you have just given up any neutrality your system may have had.
Some music just sounds bad and it should be reproduced just as badly as it was recorded. If your system sounds good all the time, either you're playing the same disc over and over or something is amiss!
tda2200 OP
151 posts
 
Bigtee

Regarding cables you are spot on, only way to be sure is buy both a xlr and rca from same brand and then see what fits my system best and i happen to like the tara labs house sound.

The neutrality thing well each has his owen preferencen.

But i dont agree with you at all that if every thing sounds great then somthing is wrong.

I have a friend that owens linn klimax solos with carefull chosen components the are as transperent as it gets but i have listend to almost my intire cd collection on that system and not one sounded bad all where musical and fantastic sounding .

On my own tact millennium is just as transperane and just as detajled but in my system 25% of my cds sounds not good 10 % sounds horrible the rest sounds fantastic.

I dont beleive in total neutality at all thats for studios, live music really sounds horrible if you studi it.

What you are describing is the system screwing up the music and with some cds thise faults are better hidden, not the other way around.

As a musician i go for hifi which brings the emotion of the music to me the rest has no menning to me, and i have countless times found myself bored with much of the gear today and espicialy so called neutral speakers the tear the music apart.

If i whant the most detajld neutal detajld sound i can pick up my martin d45.

Im a sonus faber speaker lover and know that with carefull setup you can better the real thing.
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