Recently I did a comparison between rca and xlr Nordost Frey ic's in my system. If I 'squinted' or really listened carefully I noticed a slightly better sound stage with the xlr's. That being said that wasn't enough to make my decision to buy them. Instead I bought the rca's because the gain was higher than I cared for. To clarify with the xlr's my max volume was approx 9:30 where with the rca's I can go to approx 11:00 for the same loudness. My cables are 1 meter.
