Until recently my KRK VXT6 speakers were connected to my interface with ordinary guitar leads. The two leads were different makes and not even the same length. There was always a bit of of background buzz, but the stereo imagery was good. A few weeks ago I decided to replace them with something better and ended up buying a pair of Moami cables, 2m TRS to XLR-Male. The background noise has now gone but unfortunately so has the well-defined stereo imagery. It sounds much smoother now but the directionality is kinda vague.

I'm seeking recommendations for something better. Unfortunately not all brands are available in Australia.

quality of stereo image also highly depends on speaker placement and room acoustics.
 
if you have better cables, you may get a cleaner sound and some of the intereference of the room (reflections which were previously hidden by background buzz) may now be more audible.
 
i would stick to balanced cables you got now and start looking for the next cost effective part to improve. i don't know your room, but unless you have it laid out symmetrically and already seriously treated in terms room acoustics, there is room for improvement ... and that would be the place where I put my money next. (BTW I'm not talking about auto-EQ software like ARC ... )

That's really strange.  What type of Mogami cables did you get?  What type of connectors? 
 
One of the cables could be faulty.  Any way to borrow a pair of balanced cables to compare?  I'm not convinced the problem is quality per se (IOW, don't go out and buy a more expensive pair of cables at this point).
 
In fact, if you can't borrow some, then just buy a pair of decent, but low cost balanced cables.  If they sound better, then more than likely there's a problem with the Mogamis and you should try to replace them.

JonD
...What type of Mogami cables did you get?  What type of connectors?...

 
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/151500307554
 

Kev999

JonD
...What type of Mogami cables did you get?  What type of connectors?...

 
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/151500307554

Nothing wrong with Mogami Gold, quality-wise.
 
Aside from a faulty cable, there's also the possibility of a problem with your monitor XLR port.  (Since you were using  the quarter inch inputs before).

Rather expensive for a couple of short cables, that....

Guitar/bass leads aside (they need to be low capacitance and resist handling noise very well) there's little to choose between inexpensive cables and the most expensive. In audio terms, anyway. And even for guitar/bass there's nothing any better than George L's, Planet Waves and a few others in the same price range. The idea of a cable "tuned" for jazz or metal or whatever is pure woo of the kind used to persuade wealthy hi-fi obsessives that they really, really need a gold plated pure silver power cable to "provide a purer power supply to improve the treble/bass/clarity of their system (and please ignore the miles and miles of steel, copper and aluminium cables that connect your house to the generators)".

I can't easily imagine why switching from unbalanced cable to unbalanced in itself would have a negative impact on sound quality. It's likely the interface and monitors handle balanced and unbalanced differently with regards to amplification and impedance, but if anything balanced should lead to an improvement, in noise levels if nothing else. Though with cables that short unless the environment is very electronically noisy even that may be a minimal gain. For stereo imaging to suffer seems unlikely, or at least I've never noticed cables making a marked difference in that.

Really, any two-core+braid cable terminated with ordinary Neutrik, Switchcraft or similar connectors should be up to doing a good job. No need for fancy wire either. Oxygen-free copper (OFC) is worth the slight (if any) price difference because drawn copper normally contains free oxygen which over time corrodes the cable from the inside, which is why if you strip the insulation off old cables you'll sometimes find the wire has turned black. Fancy, enormously thick, over-complicated wire isn't needed either. And as for "directional" cables, erm.... we're dealing with alternating current here so ignore that sales pitch. The same goes for solid vs twisted wire. There is a difference between how solid and twisted cable carries a signal, but only in radio frequency ranges well above the audible range.

I'd suggest picking up a couple of inexpensive but not cheapest of the cheap "budget" cables and seeing if they make any difference. It's always worth having spare cables about anyway, in my experience money spent on leads is rarely wasted in the long term.

Cables should have no effect at all on the stereo image. Assuming, of course, that they're not broken. But even then the image would just shift, not become less distinct. Something else is amiss besides cables.
 
Vagueness in the image can only be caused by one thing: lack of separation. That can be either acoustical or electronic. Maybe you're just hearing everything more clearly now, exposing weaknesses in your setup that weren't obvious before?
 

I'm with Bit on this one. The Mogami stuff is pretty standard in lots of studio's and outboard rigs. You could check the cables with a multi-meter and see if there's a high resistance on one of them, but I'd look at the monitors to see if the output trim and EQ settings are equal. I use much cheaper cables in my setup and they don't effect the stereo imaging. If you have reduced noise then it's a win, time to play with placement and speaker settings.

The cable quality is certainly not the issue.  The reason the noise went away is because you are using balanced cables now.  If the stereo image is strange, there is a slight possibility that the cable was not soldered correctly, so it is in reverse polarity.
 
You can do a short search on how XLR and TRS pinnouts work and see if your cables are correctly assembled. If they are, then the problem is most likely in the mix, not the equipment.  
 
Most people cannot hear the difference between Mogami, Canare, Hosa, or any other cable.  It is just copper and the rest is placebo.  Differences between the electrical conductivity of any cable would be well out the audible range for humans unless the cables were well over 1000 ft long, or unbalanced and poorly shielded.  
 
Of course, the manufacturers and dealers will have you think otherwise.
 
Personally I look for three things in a cable:
1) A smooth, strong, flexible kevlar housing which resists kinks and cable memory
2) Wire with higher strand counts at a higher (physically smaller in diameter) gauge which resists breakage and increases flexibility.
3) Solid connectors with a tight chuck grip that will not pull loose even if you decide to Tarzan the thing while connected to a catwalk stage box.  
 
Mogami and Canare both fit the bill with Neutrik connectors.

i use canare cable.
 
http://www.canare.com/
 
 
i have each of my mic and speaker cables custom made at a local shop,
it's almost as cheap as buying horizon cables off the wall at GC...
 
 
i DO have some mogami cables too, but in direct a/b'ing them against each other,
same lengths and setups, 
i find the canare is every bit as good, if not slightly more clarity, than the mogami,
which is supposed to be superior.
 
this is my personal experience only.