Should I upgrade to XLR interconnects?

Again to be clear, your integrated is a single ended design. It is not balanced
Alan

Hi Alan,

Where do you derive your certainty that this is the case? Marantz’s literature indicates otherwise, but does fall short of stating that the preamp is fully differentially balanced as they do for the disc player. Were I the OP, I would check with Marantz to confirm this for certain.

Dave

I appreciate so many willing to weigh in on this topic.  It appears I have to resolve the question of whether my amp is a fully balanced design or not as this seems to be a significant determinant in choosing to change my cables.  BTW - I am currently using Acoustic Zen Wow interconnects as well as Acoustic Zen Satori speaker cables. If I go XLR, I would likely stay with this brand unless there is a far superior choice for the same cost.

Hi sjtm,

Some manufacturers (atmasphere?) posit that when using XLR cabling in truly differentially balanced systems, different brands/models of XLR cables make much less (none?) sonic difference because the differential circuitry inherently cancels noise, thus making the differing noise rejection characteristics of different cable designs insignificant.

My experience is that I do hear differences between brands of XLR cabling in my differentially balanced system, FWIW.

Sorry, no personal experience with your preferred brand of cable.

Dave

In a world of thousands of cable choices who can say? My own experience (40+ years) has been that single ended cables sound better in my reference system.