Just ordered a balanced cable for my HD800, am I wasting my money?

[austinpop]

FWIW, here's my experience with my HD800 with SD mod. Not quite the 800S, but very similar.

 

For me, I did experience a better sound quality with upgraded balanced cables, although in my case the cable change and unbalanced -> balanced transition occurred in one step. That is why your experience with just the  unbalanced -> balanced transition will be interesting. Please do post your findings.

 

In my case, I first moved from stock unbalanced to Moon Audio Black Dragon cable, terminated with a 4-pin XLR. At the time, I was driving the HD800 directly from the Codex, so I also got Moon to build be a female XLR to 2x3.5mm adapter for the Codex. The Black Dragon+balanced move was a nice step up in quality. This gave the sound a warmer palette, and definitely tamed the treble, while giving better bass definition. However note that this improvement was a combination of exploiting the balanced mode of the Codex as well as the cable.

 

My next change was to my current Cardas Clear, so I was going from Black Dragon balanced to Cardas Clear balanced. And this time, both to my Cavalli Liquid Gold amp.

 

The Cardas Clear upgrade was one of my most satisfying cable purchases. It's expensive, sure, but I lucked out with a good used deal, so it wasn't too bad. The Clear just adds a beguiling combination of smoothness, warmth AND resolution to the SQ. It's really hard to describe, but it was very hard for me to go back.

 

I'm not sure this is helping, other than to say cables do change to sound, and balanced mode helps with certain amps. 

 

Other than that, YMMV!