Balanced vs. unbalanced

The way I understand it, in most devices except phone cartridge output, the signal is in a combined state (unseparated) and to get it to balanced, it has to go through another set of circuitry to separate the signals into balanced componenets for the XLR output. Whereas the RCA output does not go through the additional circuitry. And at the other end (e.g., my Krell) it has to go through the reverse process to recombine the signal.

In other words keeping the signal on the unblanced RCA path results in a circuit path with fewer components. Thoughts?

regards, David