I bought these to use with my Art Tps 2 to send a balanced signal into my soundcard. They send signal fine, no um, hiss, perfectly clean. The only issue i had with them was taking them out of the Art Tps 2 afterward. It's like they were stuck inside the xlr socket. I had to use some pliers to get them out. My heart was in my mouth. The Art is brand new, and so are the leads, so those virgin plugs and points were all meeting for the first time. Hopefully it gets better with time, or i may have to use wd40, use unbalanced jacks, try some new cables, or just leave them in permanently, which i don't want to do.....