Are Expensive Balanced Interconnects Necessary?

I believe the answer is no if your two components are truly balanced.

I agree they must be truly balanced and AES48 compliant. See article below:

Mike

https://www.ranecommercial.com/kb_article.php?article=2107

@mglik -+1

If the equipment supports the Balanced standard, then cables should have minimal effect on sound reproduction.

Ralph Karsten (atmasphere), would be a good person to PM on this.

Bob

This is an issue questioned forever.

I believe the answer is no if your two components are truly balanced.

Single ended cables is a different story.

It's not necessary to use balanced ICs unless you need to run longer lengths. Most valve gear uses single ended anyway.

Surprisingly some gear sounds better with single ended and some sounds better with balanced. No rule of thumb just experiment.

However quality is more important than balanced or single ended.

Yes, with a caution to the caveat noted below.

I upgraded from NORDOST FREY XLRs to CARDAS CLEAR XLRs. In my system, the step-up in audio performance was not subtle.

CAVEAT IMO:

- The degree of improvement is predicated by where the rest of components the your system falls in in the price/performance strata.

- each cable and components manufacturer displays their own bespoke sonic signature and thus form another key variable in your experimentation to find improvements and system synergy.

FWIW SUPPLEMENT: Here is a magazine article reporting about the “upgrade” benefits experienced at an audio fest that I also physically attended a few years ago, and I personally observed the the same experiences.

This is the CANADA HI-FI reporter’s mag report from the NORDOST cables bake-off exhibit actually performed live at TAVES in Toronto. It was in front of many, many attendees - The moves up the model line for audio improvements was clear.

http://canadahifi.com/taves-consumer-el ... rge-de-sa/


".....I had a chance to sit in on a couple demonstrations in the Nordost room, giving my feet a well deserved break. I’m very familiar with the benefits of high quality cables and use a full Nordost Heimdall 2 loom with my reference two-channel setup. That being said, I always find the Nordost demonstrations to be an “ear-opening” experience.

Michael Taylor from Nordost demonstrated the significant sonic benefits of replacing an OEM cable with a Nordost model – in particular

1) a swap of a single USB cable, from OEM to Nordost Blue Heaven ($250/2m), to Heimdall 2 ($500/2m) and;

2) a swap of a single RCA interconnect, from OEM, to Blue Heaven, to Heimdall 2, to Tyr 2 and finally Valhalla 2.

Along with convincing the audience in the room that cables DO matter, I’ve now got the bug to upgrade...."