First Foray into XLR

In my opinion, balanced XLR connections are useless for Home Audio.

The reason for going balanced is to eliminate cable artifacts.

There is a standard to which one must adhere to gain that benefit. It is often called 'AES File 48'. The point of it is not just long cables! That is a side benefit of the cables not imposing an artifact. Anyone that has auditioned single-ended cables to get the 'right sound' knows what I'm talking about.

The thing is, the equipment used has to support the standard. It sounds like the amp used in the opening post does not- it has a single-ended input and so there may be no benefit at all to using a balanced cable, since the cable will actually be operating single-ended.

I found a pic online that appeared to show a jumper from RCA input to XLR, and given other warnings here and elsewhere, I’m sticking to RCA.

so, for a first-timer stepping up from cheapie interconnnects, what do you need to know from me to make recs that are financially easy to swallow given my doubts, but good enough to be worth the step up. I know that’s throwing chum in the water, but I really have no idea where to star, and by default would just use what I already have...

FYI, RCA-terminated unbalanced cables constructed with the same Mogami 2534 wire that is used in the Gold Studio balanced cables can be obtained here:

https://www.markertek.com/product/msc3rr/mogami-neglex-quad-audio-cable-rca-male-to-male-3-foot-blac...

Also, keep in mind that most cable parameters and consequently most cable effects are proportional to length.  So the relatively short length you require is likely to make your choice of cables less critical than it would be in many other circumstances.

Good luck.  Regards,
-- Al 

I think chum is an apt analogy. Good luck!
BTW: May I suggest The Cable Company lending library?

I had a thirty year professional carear in the television broadcasting and audio recording industries!
What, might I ask, are your technical credentials?

Impressive, what did you say your credentials are tweak1?