XLR interconnects?

I am really impressed with the Clear Day balanced interconnects.
The xhadow XLR are a real treat in a solid silver interconnect and the price that vonwaffen is charging is very reasonable for the quality of construction and parts.
I did a free audition of them to see how they would match up with his speaker cables.
Synergy.
Iknow this is used a lot in this hobby, but my system never played music so effortlessly before.

I should add that the other IC I used were Cardas Golden Ref and Shunyata Aries, both good cables yet each had their own sonic strenghts and weaknesses with the Clear day speaker wire.
The Clear Day combo just clicked .
Maybe it's because the same solid core silver wire is used in both the speaker and interconnect, or it's because the xhadow XLR are really good.

I've run a lot of cables as a manufacturer. Not only that but we made the first balanced line product for high end audio- the MP-1 preamplifier. Over the years one of the more obvious deals for an interconnect between the preamp and the amp has been the Mogami mentioned several times already on this thread.

If you know only one thing about the balanced line system, the thing to know is that its purpose in life is to eliminate interconnect artifact!

In order to do that the equipment that the cables are used with has to support the standard: pin 1 is ground, pin 2 is non-inverting, pin 3 inverting, but most of all whatever is driving the cable should be able to drive a 600 ohm load without ill effects, which is how all the cable artifacts are swamped out. Most high end audio manufacturers don't get that last part.

IOW if the standard is met, the cable and its length will hardly affect the sound at all- and will be far more accurate than single-ended. So if you are hearing big differences between cables, that is an indicator that you are not getting everything out of them they have to offer.

Hello,Ralph,I used Canare speaker wire and canare wire in balancd cables when I had my Atmasphere MP3 and S30 and stacked Quad 57.
The sound was good,I was happy, no reason to experiment.
Now I have other gear that needs balanced cables.
This time an Audio Aero Capitole cd direct into a pair of Red Dragon power amps into 15 inch Tannoys.
I was now running very thin 14 ft runs of solid core silver wire to my Tannoys,and I was using the very same run of Canare balanced IC.
Since I had excellent results using canare IC and Canare speaker wire I thought I would audition a run of IC from the same company as my speaker cables.
This time there was an improvement over the canare cables, so I bought the silver wired version.
I am at a loss to explain why there was a difference.
Is it because the wire is the same guage and material as the speaker?Synergy again?
Was the Clear Day solid silver not a good combination with the copper Canare?
Was it the difference in construction of the Xhadow XLR's on the clear day compared to the Neutrik's on the Canare?
I loved my time with the Quads and Atmasphere gear, one of my better systems.
I know it isnot the electronics that are masking cable differences.
A friend of mine has the servo powered Acoustat 4 speakers and an MP3(he liked mine so bought one and kept it).
He wired everything up with Cardas neutral ref. balanced.
Then he experimented with some nordost and eventually settled with Harmonic Tech magic two.He invited 5 of his audio friends to a cable shoot out.
The Cardas Neutral, Nordost ValHalla and Harmonic Tech magic two were auditoned,and we all got very sick of listening to the same Pat Barber track.
Several of us confirmed that the Harmonic balanced cables gave his system a more robust yet detailed sound.
The Nordost cost more but didn't work as well as the Harmonic but outperformed the Cardas.
Sorry Ralph,but that's 5 pair of ears that voted for the Harmonic cables, and we didn't know the price discrepencies.
No agendas other than what cable gave the best sound.
I should add that all cables were the same length and were factory terminated.
I don't think it was a case of mass dillusion.

Lacee, I agree. I suspect that your CD player does not support the balanced line standard, and so the cables are making a difference where they should not have.

RCA cables have a connection standard, but no termination standard. Balanced line has a connection standard, but also has a termination standard, which is 600 ohms. It is that low impedance which makes the difference. If your source has a high output impedance, it can't swamp the effects of the cable and so the cable artifact can be heard. That's not taking advantage of everything that balanced line has to offer.

In the past, you used our preamp, which supports that standard, and so a fairly inexpensive cable worked fine. So IMO your experience is spot-on.

I don't know if I could have sat through that much Pat Barber, regardless of the cables :)