Finally took the plunge

[kelley]

After months of looking at B&K Ref 20's and 30's I ordered a Ref 50 through Tweeter. After the price drop it came to $1999 which is higher than the $1587 I found it for from a non-authorized dealer but I guess I can have peace of mind for 5 years. I've been using my Denon 1802 as a preamp for the front 3 channels so I'm expecting (hoping) to hear an improvement. It wont be in until Tuesday so until then I sit and wait. I do have to find a set of reasonable XLR interconnects locally, the only ones at Tweeter were 2 meter Monster 1000 for $300! Ouch, does that seem like a lot or will they be worth it?

[Emlyn]

Go to Blue Jeans Cable for inexpensive balanced audio (XLR) cables. I just got two pair 3-foot length myself for about $98 total delivered. I ordered them on Monday afternoon and the cables were in my mail box this afternoon (Wednesday). I got the version with the Canare Star Quad cable. They're well made cables like their other products.

Enjoy the Ref 50 when you get it.

[Frank Z]

Unless you plan on putting the Amp quite a distance from the preamp, XLR cables won't really be good investment. Stick with RCA cables if everything is in the same rack.

[F1nut]

I agree with Frank and I recommend MIT cables. Spend more on the interconnects than the speaker wire. $300.00 is not that much for cables, but you can find great deals on used cable at places like www.audiogon.com and get more for your money.

[Tour2ma]

I'm using SignalCable XLR's with my Ref 50 and am very pleased.

[kelley]

someone who had ordered a Ref 50 backed out so I was able to go pick up his tonight. I'm not going to unpack it until this weekend though. The salesman said the exact same thing about the benefits of xlr on short runs not being that great, but, I biamp my fronts and it's either use a splitter for the rca connectors or run one set from the xlr's and one set from the rca's. Don't know how well they'll work together. My bottom amps are 250 watt monos and the uppers are 150 so my plan is to run the rca's on the bottom and xlr on the top. Any thoughts? Thanks for the replys. I'll take a look at the above cables in the meantime.

[polkatese]

Kelley, congrats on your ref50 purchase! double check your manual since I don't believe you can use both connection simultaneously, it's an either or (RCA vs. XLR) Like Tour, I went with Signal Cable XLR for my ref50, no complain here, got the advantage of extra ground going the XLR way. Have fun setting it up...

[kelley]

I was waiting for someone to point out the simultaneous connection! Good catch! I was scoping out the manual on B&K's website last week and noticed that. I emailed B&K tech and as long as you are going to seperate amps they say it's not a problem. I guess signal cable is a strong possibility. Any links for decent prices? I can't find any on Ebay. That's why I'm waiting for the weekend to open the box. Lot's of setup and it's so cold up here that there's nothing else to do. Hopefully my DVE disc will arrive in the mail as I also bought a spl meter to calibrate everything. Emlyn, I did check out Blue Jeans and the price is right. Thanks

[Emlyn]

Kelley,
Congratulations on the Ref 50. Unfortunately you can't use both the balanced and unbalanced outputs for the mains on the Ref 50 at the same time, so it looks like you'll be limited to the unbalanced outputs and using a splitter for biamping anyway. For short length interconnects its true you shouldn't notice much of any sound quality difference between balanced and unbalanced interconnects. The chief benefit of XLR cables is noise rejection and high quality unbalanced interconnects are well shielded anyway. However, the output level on some pre-amps is higher when using balanced interconnects. The Parasound P3 picks up about 6db when using balanced cables. I don't know if this is true with the Ref 50. I've been thinking of getting one myself, but my 3803 receiver does pretty well for home theater.

You can use the other balanced outputs on the Ref 50 at the same time as using the unbalanced outputs for the main channels if you want to do something like set monoblocks up right next to your surrounds. There may be a real benefit to doing that rather than running long lengths of low cost speaker wire to the surrounds. You can get long lengths of balanced cables for not too much money and use short lengths of speaker cable.

[Tour2ma]

http://signalcable.com/analogxlr.html

Frank offers Club Polk members a small discount, 5% if memory serves...

[goingganzo]

i seccond sigonal they are top notch cables and he ansers all your questons in a good time and makes 1 sweet cabble.