XLR or RCA?

This is one of the rare occasions when I must very respectfully disagree with my learned A'gon colleague and friend Jmcgrogan2, although the opinion he expresses is shared by many audiophiles.

Elegal 02-17-14
I then read that xlr cables only provide a real benefit if you are using balanced cables throughout your entire system, which I presume means from my turntable into my preamp. Is this true?

My answer is that it is not necessarily true. Regardless of whether the components in the system are internally balanced or not, and regardless of whether all of the interconnections in the system are balanced or not, a balanced interface between any given pair of components is inherently less susceptible to noise that may be introduced as a result of ground loop or other effects. And in referring to "noise" I am referring not just to noise that may be audible as such, but also to the possibility that noise that may be introduced at frequencies which are too high to be audible may have audible consequences, by "intermodulating" with signal within the components.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for the XLR interface circuits of components that are not internally balanced to be sonically inferior to the RCA interface circuits of those components.

The bottom line, IMO: Which interface would be best to use in your particular case cannot be predicted with any certainty. Hopefully someone will chime in who has experience making that comparison with the same or similar McIntosh components, as other opinions stand a very good chance of not being applicable. IMO, of course :-)

Regards,
-- Al