joule electra vs. atma-sphere any input?

I wouldn't doubt Ralph is correct.

But I discussed this with Jud many years ago.  His feeling was that balanced was critical with long cable runs, such as in studios, but not necessarily so with the lengths in most home audio systems.  He said to be truly balanced, as opposed to sudo-balanced, would require one additional gain stage and he didn't believe that was worth the trouble or cost.

So even today we find manufacturers on both sides of the question.