What's the benefit of balanced tonearm cables?

I use balanced (XLR) connections from the cartridge, through the pre, through the amp.  ....I can put my ear to the speaker cones on phono input and hear nothing...dead silence.  This contributes to the clarity/definition, and transparent listen experience.

erik_squires

"I've never heard of blanced cabled cancelling cable artifacts."

It's not the balanced cabling so much, as using balanced connections into a differential amplifier. By definition, a differential amp should negate any effect of the cable.

Balanced line and single-ended (RCA connections) are inherently incompatible. If you have one then its not the other. There is no such thing as pseudo balanced- that would simply be single-ended.

He may have meant a balanced line with RCA termination. That is how I run my set-up. This presupposes that the RCA input of your phono pre is balanced. In my case, with a transformer input, the XLR and RCA inputs are connected in parallel with a ground lift switch. Lifting the ground converts the RCA input to balanced. One could argue that the asymmetry of the RCA connection would introduce some differential noise. I would argue that the effect would be small at best.

My reason for this arrangement is convenience. I have a Rega style tonearm where the cables exit the mounting post and have to fit through the hole in the arm pod on my Nott. TT. Not keen to unsolder and solder XLRs every time I have to pull the tonearm.

john_tracy

"He may have meant a balanced line with RCA termination. That is how I run my set-up. This presupposes that the RCA input of your phono pre is balanced ..."

Yes, this can certainly be done, and it's worth repeating because many audiophiles associate XLR connectors with balanced operation and RCA connectors as being always unbalanced. While that's often true, the truth is that it is the circuit - and not the connector - that defines whether or not a circuit is balanced.

In fact some phono preamps, including the ARC Ref Phono - which is a balanced, differential amplifier - offer only RCA connectors on the inputs. But provided that its RCA inputs are connected using a ground wire separate from the individual channel grounds, you'll have a fully balanced connection between a typical phono cartridge and the phono preamp. 

(I've omitted from this discussion the debate about how ARC grounds its balanced connections to the chassis. That a debate for another day. )

If your phono stage has XLR inputs, use XLR cables from cartridge to Phono stage.

Will you get dead silence?  Maybe!  Will the choice of XLR cable affect the sound?  Maybe?

I use RCA phono cables to my Pass XOno (which has RCA inputs only).  The choice of phono cable does affect the sound quality, however I always have dead silence!  No noise, with ear to speaker, and volume all the way up.