Balanced cables

I'd like to thank @atmasphere and @almarg for participating whenever discussions involve balanced cables / components.

I've noticed a few assumptions that lead to confusion surrounding balanced cables / components. Here's how I generally cut to the chase:

1. XLR terminations on a cable do not (necessarily) mean the cable is of a balanced design. Sometimes the designers design to the "spec", sometimes they get close, sometimes they don't care.
   
2. XLR connectors on a component do not (necessarily) mean the component is of a balanced design. Sometimes the designers design to the "spec", sometimes they get close, sometimes they don't care.
   
3. When designers design to the balanced "spec", things play together with less variance due to the component interactions through the connections (and have less impact through noise that may be injected into the system). Everything else requires much more "trial and error" with regard component matching.

In summary, the value of balanced components using balanced cables (generally leveraging XLR terminations / connectors) designed to the the balanced "spec" are 2 fold:

1. What @cleeds states  - Common Mode Rejection Ratio. CMRR (in overly-simplifed terms) mean when noise enters the signal path, it affects the (+) and (-) legs identically. When the (-) signal is inverted and summed with the (+) signal, that noise magically cancels itself out.
   
2. The input (and output) impedance of the components are sufficiently low (or high, respectively) for generally optimal transfer of signal.
   

@stringreen 

Back to the intent of your post...

What are you using for power distribution? I’d maybe try an Ayre 5-Lxe in front of your source components. Yes, “Ayre-conditioning” is already part of each component of your Ayre stack, but I recall the late, great Charley Hansen touting the benefits of double-conditioning on another forum. I believe he claimed the transformation was so significant that the pairing of a 5-Lxe and an AX-7e was part of his personal reference system (before the R series was released). It’s why I use that factory-modified combo with my Vandersteen Quatro CTs.