Best phono stage balanced under $3000 used

K&K Audio sells a phono preamp kit for about $1500 which offers balanced as well as single ended topology. I own one. In my opinion, it is much better than the EAR 834p.
Perhaps you should consider the K&K kit; then take the money that remains in your budget and upgrade your cartridge. I suspect the improvement from those two purchases would exceed the improvement from any phono preamp you could buy for $3K.

John_tracy,
Thanks for the correction. I was sloppy in my choice of words. With respect to Pedrillo's question, the points I wanted to make are (1) the K&K can deliver balanced output; (2) the cost savings (substituting elbow grease) are significant without compromise to the ultimate performance of your system; and (3) the cartridge, like the preamp, can limit the performance of the system. Pedrillo, I think, can obtain a better cartridge for his system.