Very good. I tried the Balanced XLR from my Nuforce to my Pass when I first got it and I thought it was kind of shouty sounding in my opinion but I was not using the quality of cable that you are speaking of. I just thought that it did not have the balance of sound that was as good as the RCA, but I have not tried it since I have upgraded to the NuWave DAC. Maybe some day when I have the time to listen I will try the XLR cables again to see how they do now. It could be just that the BLue Jeans XLR cables just do not have synergy with my gear and something like the Anti-cables could in fact work good and give me more of the good things I am hearing now in my system.