I recently changed from unbalanced to balanced, 3 months ago, and I've been pleased. I would say overall, the noise floor is definitly lower. The instruments come from a blacker, darker background, if you will. The strange thing I've noticed though, is that I have a harder time telling the difference between cables. For example, the difference between XLO Reference and Signature seems much more pronounced to me unbalanced then in the balanced form. Maybe I'm crazy (my wife won't disagree) but I prefer the balanced form overall. Gotta go , Dickie Betts is jamming, man this sh@t sounds good.