balanced vs unbalanced output

I'm trying hard not to have a debate about this subject, but rather to point out that a balanced design is not the end-all, be-all for home equipment. There are designers who prefer unbalanced; it took only a few clicks to find that the designer for the pricey Manley Labs equipment prefers unbalanced design as do Conrad Johnson and some others.

There are other designers who prefer balanced and still others who just go with the flow since balanced home equipment is more popular these days than in the past.

I've had equipment that runs both ways. I'd much rather have my current unbalanced amp than say a $200 Behringer with balanced inputs.

My only point? Absent a specific need for the common mode rejection capabilities of balanced circuitry, this spec is toward the bottom of the list of concerns for a typical audiophile when picking a piece of equipment. T'ain't no more complicated than that.

Bob - you said it right. It is a kind of insurance against noise and there is no reason they should sound worse (other than shield unfortunately grounded on both ends). My Rowland class D amp doesn't even have unbalanced input - very mature on Jeff Rowland side in presence of class D introduced electrical noise.

While you state there are "no 'technical' reasons" against balanced design, I would simply comment again there are some talented designers of well-regarded equipment who apparently are not in full agreement with that statement. They state their case better than I, but at least it makes the point there is not a universal consensus on the subject.

Some designers don't want the added transformer or differential amp needed for balanced. Here's a comment by Robert Harley of Absolute Sound:

The preamplifier's balanced output is then sent from the preamplifier output to the power amplifier's balanced input where it's-that's right-converted to unbalanced with yet another active stage. The result of these unbalanced/balanced/unbalanced/balanced/unbalanced conversions is additional electronics in the signal path-just what we don't want. This is why you can't assume that balanced components sound inherently better than unbalanced ones.

My observation is there are many areas of science and engineering where there is more than one opinion about the best approach to an issue. Building anything involves compromises and choices where different people arrive at different conclusions. Audio is not an exception.

Thanks for an enjoyable discussion.

This is just like watching "Rocky"