XLR or single ended cables and why?

Salestalk and Ads are designed to make you fearful. Fear that you are somehow not getting the most out of your high $$$ system. And fear propels consumers to get their wallet out and spend more $$$

Do not be concerned: Wire is wire. There is no big deal to XLR.

Plug whichever existing interconnect cable you like best into your system. If you have an excessive hum, hiss or noise problem then by all means try something different...maybe even XLR. But don't expect any sonic miracles...a lower noise floor is the most you should expect to gain.

A cable is simply a connection (XLR or RCA, copper, silver or gold) and at audio frequencies you usually don't have to worry about shielding in most domestic environments. An unbalanced circuit can sound just as good as a balanced one in the majority of applications.

I would only ever worry about this if you already have a problem. If you do have a problem then consuider that it might be a component failure/compatibilty problem rather than assume a bad RCA cable.

Ghostrider45,

You are right that I have oversimplified.

RCA uses ground to carry half of the signal whilst XLR uses an additional wire. Signal levels are different as well. Circuits are designed differently too. Using the chassis for carrying part of the signal (RCA) does run an increased risk of picking up noise. A larger signal (balanced) with shielded cables (XLR) will be relatively more immune to noise.

But all this is really splitting hairs when considering most domestic applications. Many consumer grade equipment manufacturers offer only RCA connections and for good reasons; the majority find these circuit designs/connections perfectly acceptable.

Shadorne, Is it a big deal to have an extra increase of 6db with XLR ? That's a lot of extra juice. Running either at 4 or 8 ohm, It requires double in wattage power for each 3db increase. Isn't it ? BTW, I have my MD. pulled the wool out of my ears the other day. Thanks for the advise.

Andrewdoan,

No there is very little current and almost no power flowing through interconnects...input impedances of devices they connect to are normally pretty high.

All a high signal level means is that if there is noise being picked up or if there is noise in the preceeding circuit then the Signal to Noise might be less by about 6db or so compared to RCA (which has a lower signal level). This is in "Theory", however, in practice RCA circuits can be just as good S/N as compared to XLR balanced....I guess it depends on the individual component circuit quality as much as anything. In any case, once you get to S/N of 110+ db which is often the case in high quality gear ...it becomes academic if it is RCA or XLR as you can only hear the noise with no other sound from the speakers and the volume cranked up and your ear at 6 inches from the tweeter!!!

Of course, the above comments are for short runs and for a normal environment where you don't have a problem with EM noise pick up (lots of cables/transformers etc. all close together).