Advice on Balanced Cables

I find that Discovery Essence XLR sound WAY more open and vivid than HT Pro-Silway RCA between my EMC-1 MkII and Aleph P. Several of you say it's the cable, but I wonder if it could be the balanced operation. I know that's the pitfall of changing two things at once, but life is short, eh?

I tried the Pythons with a 506.24 using a 4B ST through a Pass Aleph P & found them to be too bright. I also sold the 4B ST as it was too dry. I settled on Stealth CWS, both an RCA & XLR set with the Aleph P using an Aleph 5 & Ayre V-3. Both sounded exceptional.

I'm using Lapis and Diamond balanced interconnects throughout my system. Mostly X3, although I do have a Diamond X2. Cables are very synergetic with the system and you may want to check some out from the cable company. I have tried Cardas in my system (even the digital lightening--which was great, but not as good as the Audioquest Falcon) and the Audioquest was better for me. But my system is considerably different components, so your results could be different. Also, short runs don't make a big difference balanced to RCA--in some cases no difference and in a few cases it will get worse (although I doubt the latter with your equipment). The reason it can get worse is that the balanced configuration in the electronics was an afterthought and not part of the original design. Poorly designed balanced circuits tend to sound worse than single ended. Last possibility--you could get the Lapis re-terminated from Audioquest. It's not cheap--but those are great cables, and if you like them it's much cheaper than buying new.

Argent:

I have a Bryston 4b-st & a Bryston bp-20 preamp & a rotel RC-991 cd player ... all have balanced connects. The amp / preamp are connected w/ Kimber KCAG balanced ... a minor improvement over the KCAG (rca) interconnects. the cd player was/is originally connected w/ Lapis x3 (rca) and is now also connected w/ Cardas Neutral (balanced). the cd sounded great w/ the lapis ic's but the improvement w/ the cardas neutral was impressive ... the soundstage opened up quite a bit. i listen to Magnepan MG IIIa speakers which already have a very open sound.

hope this helps - scott