Balanced vs RCA preamps

I think people who like balanced enjoy plugging in the cables more than RCA. They look really cool.

@emergingsoul , ever since I was in preschool I have been fascinated by balanced circuits and the effect that they had on my audio gear; therefore at recess I would always sneak out to the nearby audio store to check out how much better the truly balanced circuits sounded than the single ended.

The short answer to your question is, it is not a good idea to base your decision on which preamp to buy solely on the basis of balanced outputs.  First of all, they do not exist for tube equipment, maybe there is a hybrid out there I am not aware of, but for all practical purposes anything with XLR connections is going to be solid state.

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@billstevenson , the Cary SLP05 is a tube preamp that features a truly balanced circuit, and I am sure that there are plenty of others.

Just because you have balanced input and out puts does not mean the unit is full balanced! A very large part of the pre amp market is not fully balanced. Even though they have the connections.

True, @68pete , but I bet that almost every manufacturer that puts a piece of gear out with a truly balanced circuit comes out and says so in the owner's manual.  

Another reason for RCA and fully balanced XLR outputs might be for subwoofers. If the two sets of output jacks (XLR and RCA, respectively) are in parallel- meaning they both output the same audio signal, they can be used for connection to multiple amplifiers or an amplifier and a pair of mono subwoofers. My XLR outputs can connect to my amps XLR inputs and RCS outputs to my pair of subs.

I am not running my sub at the moment; however that's the way i ran it out of my SLP 05.  I used the balanced in from my Marantz SA10 and the balanced out to my Cary V-12 and ran the sub from the RCAs out of my SLP05.  The quality of the sub I was using left a lot to be desired, but it worked fine.

A word of caution. Just because there’s an XLR connection does not mean it is a truly balanced circuit. I’ve seen many implementations where it’s actually a single ended circuit transmitted via XLR connectors. 

@jpan , if the manufacturer clearly states that a piece of gear is truly balanced, I am willing to take his word for it.