I've had and heard lots of Synergistic over the years, not everything but a lot and both active and non-active. Some years ago I upgraded my non-active Resolution Reference speaker cables to active by sliding a metal mesh over them and connecting that to my Active Master Control Center. Well I copied almost exactly what Ted was doing back then. Powering the active on and off made exactly the same difference as you would hear with his active, so mostly his looks a lot better.
Then I upgraded those to Element Copper Tungsten Silver, which were then further upgraded by having Michael Spallone do his Active Shielding Module mod, replacing the cheap board and parts with a better diode and cap and point to point soldering. Spoiler alert: this I would say is the sweet spot in terms of reasonably affordable bang for the buck.
Also just a couple months ago I went from the non-active Designers Reference .5 to the current Atmosphere Level 3 Euphoria interconnect. So a lot of experience with SR.
Long story short, all the SR just keeps getting better and even somehow manages to be good value for money as you go newer and higher. Which is amazing considering how much the newest/best costs. But it is beyond question. If you can afford Euphoria or higher and you are not thrilled I would have to wonder what is wrong with your ears.
This is by the way since you mention it without even using the grounding block. Supposedly the Euphoria are even better with it. But its so good now I'm just not feeling the need. If and when I do, the main benefit of the grounding block is it looks great and makes for easy connections. Aside from that they all come with a wall-wart looking thing to plug into any outlet. Which all its really doing anyway is connecting to ground. The two power prongs aren't connected to anything. I will probably skip the whole thing and solder a wire straight to ground.
I don't know XLR prices or availability but all the CTS I saw were very favorably priced for what you get. Especially after you have Michael Spallone do his mod. Raises them a to a whole new level. They will sound so good you won't believe it! Until I heard Euphoria.
My experience with SR of well over 20 years is that as expensive as they are you get what you pay for. The improvement as you go up the line and newer remains impressively across the board balanced in terms of imaging, detail, harmonic development, you name it. Everything else I have ever tried, they manage to get a few things right here and there but never as many and in as pleasingly balanced as Ted.
CTS (with the Spallone mods) is probably your best bet for getting really worthwhile improvement without spending a whole lot more.
One more thing to consider. If you get CTS and hear how great it sounds (especially with the PMC mod) you will probably find yourself wanting to do a similar upgrade to whatever you're running between the pre and power amp. That's what happened to me. I was really, really happy with my interconnect, until I heard the much better CTS. Until then I honestly would not have believed anything could be this good! Once I heard it though it made me REALLY want to upgrade my interconnect. So watch out. As easy as it is on your ears it can be really hard on your bank account.
