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Hrrmmm..What a difference..Now must move speakers

Hello,

I was curious to know if anyone has ever experienced the following scenario:

You replaced an XLR cable or RCA cable between your DAC and your Preamp or your Preamp and Amp and the difference was so great or obvious, for the better, that it required you to have to reposition your speakers to take advantage of all the new found information being presented?

I will not name the brands of cable that this occurred with to avoid a proverbial pissing match but I will say that this happened to me recently and I found it very enlightening and scary at the same time as both brands are well known and respected in the cabling market and both are fairly expensive.

In my case I replaced a line level RCA cable pair with a Balanced XLR cable pair between my DAC and Preamp.

DAC is a BelCanto DAC3
Preamp is a Ayre K-5xeMP

Thanks for your input
eniac26
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
By changing from rca to xlr, you have changed the configuration of the dac's output circuit that is being used, the configuration of the preamp's input circuit that is being used, gains and signal amplitudes (and therefore presumably volume control settings), susceptibility to ground loop effects, susceptibility to pickup of low level noise, output and input impedances, and probably the relative amplitudes of some harmonic distortion components. The make and model of the specific cables have nothing to do with any of those things; they are just one more variable among many.

Definitely an apples to oranges comparison, as was said above.

Regards,
-- Al
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
This is exactly how the cable mythology propagates.... Change several things and attribute it to the wires....
swanny76109
382 posts
 
Ayre and Bel Canto gear are fully balanced differential output and perform best in that configuration. No surprise at all. Bet your soundtage is wider, deeper and blacker background with less hash in the signal chain. Enjoy!
eniac26 OP
97 posts
 
I certainly don't disagree that the difference may be more to do with the connection method verses the brand and is part of the reason I didn't mention any manufacturer names earlier.

I guess I am just surprised that it sounds different enough as to need to move the speakers around again considering that all the main equipment is still the same. At any event, It certainly nails home the concept that some equipment was designed around a balanced connection and the RCA was more just a nice to have feature just in case.

Thanks
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
Typically one gets a 6 dB increase going to balanced design, provided the components are true balanced. I have not had to reposition speakers based on this however, despite different cable brands making a noticeable difference to the overall sonic "picture."
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