Balanced XLR to RCA Adapters: Good or Bad?

I very much appreciate the help of all of you who have responded, although I still don’t know what I want to do. I would like to respond in particular to Herman’s remark: “Come on Doug, you have more invested in a single cable than he has in his entire system” because curiously my speaker cables are probably the best part of my whole system. I have two 12’ Mark Levinson speaker cables bought in 1982 @$5 per foot (= $120). Similar cables (Mark Levinson 10 gauge) are being sold on Ebay now for about $1450 per pair. My speakers, bought in 1982 along with the cables, have also, I believe, stood the test of time better than the rest of my system (NAD amp and a 1996 Sota Comet with a Jelco LMT III tonearm): I have two 5’ Magnaplanar 1 speakers for which I paid $700-750. I tell you this not to impress you, but rather to give you a clearer perspective on the potential of my system for upgrading. I might also mention that I have 40’ of shelf space taken up by LP’s (3000 records I estimate) and that the alternative to the Clearaudio Ambient for me is the Clearaudio Ovation. I was thinking of getting before I saw the ad for the Ambient.

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In the link you provided in the original post you list

Polk Monitor Jr 5
B&W DM 605 s2
Sony cd player
PC sound card

which is what I based my comment on

In any case, if it were me I would try some adapters you can get from a music store for around $10. I'm not going to get an argument with anybody about what they do and don't hear but my feeling is that people often hear what they want to hear, and if they believe the adapters degrade the sound they will no matter what is actually happening.

adapter

Good luck in your quest.
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Herman, that link is to a post about the NAD 3155 by "Badman" in 2002. The system described there is his, not mine, but I understand your confusion. In any case, I should have described my whole system at the start. It is thanks to the internet and sites like this that I have learned that parts of my system are still highly valued, and others are not. That is the reason why I felt I should go for an upgrade. At the start I merely wanted to upgrade my tonearm. But the Comet would need to be modified to take another tonearm. It is designed to be used only with the LMT tonearm (so Sota told me). And I concluded it would not be worthwhile to modify the Comet; I should invest in another TT altogether. I read about other turntables, Thorens, Gerrard, Linn, etc., but with these bought second-hand I would not be sure of what I was getting, and I concluded that, if I was going to get a new one, it should be something really new and different from what I had. The Clearaudio TT’s with the CMB offered at least that.
The discussion that my post has started has alerted me to the XLR-RCA issue, and Rlg_audio’s comments about fake XLR equipment has convinced me to check with you people before investing in any upgrade involving XLR equipment. I’d be interested in hearing what you all think about the Ovation in comparison with the Ambient. The acrylic platter seems now to be outmoded, and POM is in…but for how long?

Ebm wrote:

Im using Cardas xlr to rca very good none is better.

Compared to what? No one's in a position to state that "none is better" because no one's heard everything out there.

I've also used the Cardas adaptors. Compared with my Doshi-built ones or with no adaptors at all they sounded sludgy. I might say, "none is worse" but I'm not so bold... something may be.

I'd just like to offer some clarifications with respect to the references that have been made to "fake xlr equipment." Three different situations need to be distinguished:

1)The phono stage provides an xlr input, and has a fully balanced internal signal path.

2)The phono stage provides an xlr input, which is routed into a circuit stage that has a balanced input and an unbalanced output, the rest of the signal path in the unit being unbalanced. That retains the noise rejection benefits of the fully balanced approach, and in so doing takes advantage of the fact that the cartridge is a balanced source. "Noise" in this context refers mainly to noise that is picked up in the cabling between the cartridge and the phono stage input, which may include ultrasonic and rf noise that may not be audible in itself but may have audible consequences. This approach obviously does not provide the potential benefits of a fully balanced internal signal path, but is likely to be less expensive for comparable quality.

3)The phono stage does not have a balanced input stage, and utilizes only one of the two signals in the balanced signal pair, with the other one being connected to ground. That would merit the word "fake" that has been used, as there would be nothing balanced about the balanced input. FWIW, I am not specifically aware of any such phono stages, but it wouldn't surprise me if some existed.

The tradeoff between the first two approaches should, IMO, revolve primarily around the quality of the particular designs, as well as cost, and not primarily on theoretical considerations of balanced vs. unbalanced. Whether or not the rest of the components in the system have balanced internal signal paths is also a relevant factor.

Regards,
-- Al