balanced vs. unbalanced sound quality

My vote goes to balanced . Lower noise floor and bigger sound stage .

>>12-09-10: Tmsorosk
Lower noise floor and bigger sound stage<<

Not true at all.

System/component dependent.

Tmsorcsk, Yours is a generalization with many exceptions. I`ve heard many comparisons where single end was either as good or in some cases clearly better. As stated above system dependent always.

Charles1dad ... most things audio have exceptions . I guess in stead of saying my vote was for balanced , I should have said my personal experience and preference was for balanced . I have had no less than 4 solid state power amps , 4 solid state preamps , 1 tube preamp , and 2 C.D. players in my system in the last 12 years or so , and have found fairly uniform results with cabling this way . I'm wondering if your preference is based more on tubes ? Ether way happy listening .

It has been my experience that if a component is designed properly balanced, it will yield better performance...lower noise floor, etc. There are some components that have XLR outputs and claimed balanced operation, but they are "posers" and are really not balanced circuits....therefore, no increase in performance is obtained.