If your new Lyngdorf and your Mac both have balanced out and in why don't you just buy one lower cost balanced cable and use that. why try to make a balanced to RCA cable if you do not need it. Balanced cables are not as susceptible to noise induction so you do not need to spend huge money on balanced cables.
Is mixing RCA and XLR cables bad?
I’m getting a new Lyngdorf HT processor and it only outputs via balanced XLR connection. All my current cables are RCA and I don’t feel like replacing them all yet (till I research XLR cables), so I’m going with an XLR to RCA adaptor cable.
Lyngdorf specifically mentions that any adapter must have pin 3 lifted. I found only one appropriate adaptor, made by Emotiva. I can use this for all connections, but my McIntosh mc452 also has specific RCA/XLR instructions that confuse me, so I though maybe I’d buy XLR cable just for the Mac for now. Is this bad? Will the pure XLR connection have different volume output versus the XLR to RCA adaptor connection? Does it matter?
Appreciate any advice/guidance.