Unless it is explicitly indicated that the particular cable is designed to provide the nominally 110 ohm characteristic impedance that is necessary for compliance with AES/EBU standards, or it is at least indicated that the cable is suitable for digital as well as analog applications, I would not count on it being anywhere close to 110 ohms, and I would avoid it.
For example, Blue Jeans Cable offers balanced cables utilizing "Belden 1800F, a highly flexible, low-capacitance AES/EBU cable suitable both for digital and analog use, and Canare L-4E6S, a 'star quad' cable suitable for analog usage only, with higher capacitance but also higher common-mode noise rejection." The 1800F cable is 110 ohms, but the Canare is only 44 ohms, which would result in a severe impedance mismatch in an AES/EBU application, which at the very least would stand a good chance of adversely affecting jitter.
Regards,
-- Al
For example, Blue Jeans Cable offers balanced cables utilizing "Belden 1800F, a highly flexible, low-capacitance AES/EBU cable suitable both for digital and analog use, and Canare L-4E6S, a 'star quad' cable suitable for analog usage only, with higher capacitance but also higher common-mode noise rejection." The 1800F cable is 110 ohms, but the Canare is only 44 ohms, which would result in a severe impedance mismatch in an AES/EBU application, which at the very least would stand a good chance of adversely affecting jitter.
03-12-15: YpingA cable having XLR connectors would not be used for S/PDIF, which would be either RCA, BNC, or optical. And I very much doubt that a statement that S/PDIF is superior to AES/EBU is true in general, although it is certainly conceivable that there may be SOME cases where a S/PDIF connection between two specific pieces of equipment may provide results that are subjectively preferable to an AES/EBU connection between those same two pieces of equipment.
Is that using an XLR as SPDIF or AES/EBU. SPDIF is a superior format to AES/EBU, imo...
Regards,
-- Al