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Does balanced interconnect sound beter than RCA?

I'm in the process of upgrading my system and looking at new/used integraged amps. The amps i am considering are the sim i-5, the plinius 8200 mk 2, perreaux 200ip and the classe cap151. Some have have both balanced and RCA connectors for the CD player and some don't. Can you hear the difference of the Balanced connection versus the RCA connection? It seems that their is a lot of very expensive equipment that does not have balanced connections which would seem to indicate that it doesn't necessarily need to be there. Is it worth getting an amp or cd player that can utilize balanced connections?
thanks,
jmillen
jmillen

Showing 2 responses by daltonlanny

daltonlanny
301 posts
 
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using balanced outputs instead of single-ended RCA's.
In my system, there was much less noise, the hum was eliminated, the imaging and openness was better, and there was much more gain using the XLR's instead of the RCA's.
I was very surprised at the improvements! And, my Parasound HCA 3500 power amp is not a truly balanced amplifier! It has the XLR inputs, but as far as I know they are converted to single-ended inside the amp.
Results may vary with different components and systems, however.
daltonlanny
301 posts
 
Balanced is clearly superior in my system!
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