Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
If your source and amp use a truly balanced design (many do not), then I'd opt for balanced. On the other hand, they might not be necessary with sufficiently low cap cabling.

rw
The source might be, but I doubt the amp is truly balanced (as the X-Series amp manual only refers to the XPA-1 Monoblocks as being "fully balanced")...

Though this is not a fair comparison as the IC's are from different brands (one consumer and one pro): I find that I prefer the sound of my Audioquest RCA Cables to my Rapco Balanced Cables...