Tom Bombadil
AK Member
Recently picked up a few Canare brand balanced / XLR cables. Very reasonably priced at $12/3', $15/6' per single cable. These are the Canare branded cables usually sold in musician stores. Made of their L-4E6S star quad cable and with Yongsheng (from Ningbo Neutrik Electronics) connectors.
The L-4E6S is a higher capacitance cable designed for high noise rejection in long microphone and instrument runs. I don't think this extra capacitance is an issue in 3' to 6' runs at line level voltages. The total cable & connector capacitance is still reasonably low.
Have tested them for a few days in my #1 system, which isn't a shabby system, where the components and speakers total to over $20,000. They sound excellent. I have two preamps, a high-end DAC and two power amps which accept balanced connections. But I've never made much use of them.
The connectors seem okay to me too. Maybe not quite as sturdy as higher priced Neutrik connectors, as found in the Blue Jeans balanced cables made with the same L-4E6S cable. Sonically I find them excellent. Now if I were running a night club or touring with a band, I would opt for the Neutriks as their ruggedness would be handy when plugging and unplugging them every night. You can order the same Canare L-4E6S cables with "real" Neutrik connectors but it nearly doubles the price.
I like the flexibility these cables add to my system. I have both SS and tube preamps and amps in my main system. My DAC has both RCA and balanced outputs. Now I can run the RCA outs to my tube preamp then to the tube amp, with the balanced outs running to a SS preamp and balanced out from it to my SS amp. All I have to do is switch my speaker cables (now using banana plugs to make this easy) to choose between tube vs SS, while using the same source / DAC. Depending what mood I'm in, and what type of music I'm listening to (my tube amp is of lower power and not up to playing real loud.)
The L-4E6S is a higher capacitance cable designed for high noise rejection in long microphone and instrument runs. I don't think this extra capacitance is an issue in 3' to 6' runs at line level voltages. The total cable & connector capacitance is still reasonably low.
Have tested them for a few days in my #1 system, which isn't a shabby system, where the components and speakers total to over $20,000. They sound excellent. I have two preamps, a high-end DAC and two power amps which accept balanced connections. But I've never made much use of them.
The connectors seem okay to me too. Maybe not quite as sturdy as higher priced Neutrik connectors, as found in the Blue Jeans balanced cables made with the same L-4E6S cable. Sonically I find them excellent. Now if I were running a night club or touring with a band, I would opt for the Neutriks as their ruggedness would be handy when plugging and unplugging them every night. You can order the same Canare L-4E6S cables with "real" Neutrik connectors but it nearly doubles the price.
I like the flexibility these cables add to my system. I have both SS and tube preamps and amps in my main system. My DAC has both RCA and balanced outputs. Now I can run the RCA outs to my tube preamp then to the tube amp, with the balanced outs running to a SS preamp and balanced out from it to my SS amp. All I have to do is switch my speaker cables (now using banana plugs to make this easy) to choose between tube vs SS, while using the same source / DAC. Depending what mood I'm in, and what type of music I'm listening to (my tube amp is of lower power and not up to playing real loud.)
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