Balanced cables

Just last year I bought a $3,100 XLR cable.
Seven meter Kimber KS1116
Love it. just what I needed.

Prior I had 7 m Kimber PBJ
7m Kimber Hero
7m Cadas Parsec I returned (total fail as a long XLR, but excellent at one meter)
7m Kimber bulk made up by me.

@elizabeth,
Though I respect Kimber, I would have a hard time justifying $3K for interconnects. 
Do you notice such a significant difference in sound reproduction?
And, I only say this as a question.
Bob

@stringreen 

Back to the intent of your post...

What are you using for power distribution? I’d maybe try an Ayre 5-Lxe in front of your source components. Yes, “Ayre-conditioning” is already part of each component of your Ayre stack, but I recall the late, great Charley Hansen touting the benefits of double-conditioning on another forum. I believe he claimed the transformation was so significant that the pairing of a 5-Lxe and an AX-7e was part of his personal reference system (before the R series was released). It’s why I use that factory-modified combo with my Vandersteen Quatro CTs. 

I was wondering if/when this was going to happen? Was this wrong?

Just last year I bought a $3,100 XLR cable.
Seven meter Kimber KS1116

For that money you could get a preamp with high output (around 18 volts vs the regular 2 volts). A better higher output component will be unaffected by either the type of XLR cable and/or length. Usually it is interconnect capacitance that affects weak low cost consumer (low-fi) gear resulting in less dynamics. RCA is terrible but of course no serious audiophile would ever use RCA. 

Again it is sad to see folks misplacing blame on interconnects when it is the components that are at fault for any audible degradation.