Balanced XLR to 1/4 TRS verses Unbalanced RCA

If any beginners like myself may be considering changing from standard RCA IC's to XLR balanced, here's my experience and vote. I had a slight, yet, very annoying hum. It came from a large pair of powered monitors used as front mains and connected to a Proceed's AVP2 +6 using RCA pre-outs. The hum effected all channels, although I had to listen closely to hear it. Lisening fatigue creeped in.

I changed out to Mogami Gold with balanced XLR connects to the Preceed pre-outs and TRS 1/4 inch plugs into the monitors. If you haven't read about this, TRS connections are balanced 1/4 inch plugs.

What happened? All perceptable hum disappeared. I thought the SVS Ultra 13 wasn't properly set up and causing listening fatique. No. The fatigue effect was from the elusive low-grade hum using unbalanced RCA IC's.

Without question, everything sounds more balanced, clearer and smoother with more detail. Front-end sources sound like they were upgraded. Friends express the "WOW" effect.

I went all Mogami Gold from B & H Photo. For $350.00, all 18 IC's were redone including DVD-A/SACD multi-channel and the two 20 foot XLR's/TRS front mains IC cables. Most were only the one foot length, perfect for a Tandberg tuner and multi-disk, multi-channel OPPO player.

Recommendation: Try balanced XLR's IC's. Choose a solid company long known for developing music recording industry standards. I could have gone for more exotic IC's, but this matching set sounds great for the price.