I understand that Peter is very big(tall, that is), so his claim is credible.
While we're back on this, Mike, it isn't distance alone, but a combination of distance with lots of external electromagnetic interference working over that distance(e.g. such as often exists in professional use)which might make a balanced XLR connection preferable. The balanced cable uses two central conductors(typically tightly twisted, although this isn't essential to the process)rather than one as in a coaxial cable. The balanced output device sends out a voltage signal on each of the conductors, but inverts one by 180 degrees with respect to the other. The balanced input device re-inverts one by 180 degrees so that both voltages are in phase and instead of cancelling each other they add and the resulting voltage is 6dB higher(a doubling of voltage is a 6dB increase, rather than the 3dB for a doubling of power). Typically the balanced input circuit has a 6dB lower gain than the unbalanced coax input to compensate for this. So what does all this back-and-forth inverting, winding up the same, accomplish? Any external electrical noise that hits the two conductors is of the same phase and nearly of equal strength if the conductors are very close to each other; when the inversion occurs in the receiving device, this puts the two noise voltages 180 degrees out of phase with each other and therefore the external noise is cancelled.
