Truly balanced components make use of "common mode rejection" to lower distortion artifacts. It is very easy to just broadly say that therefore, ALL balanced components are better than unbalanced ones...not necessarily so. One thing that is accepted wisdom in the industry, however, is that IT IS BENEFICIAL TO CONNECT AN UNBALANCED SOURCE COMPONENT INTO A BALANCED PREAMPLIFIER, WHICH THEN CONNECTS TO A BALANCED AMPLIFIER. In other words, it's very beneficial for the signal from the source component to become actively balanced by a balanced preamplifier.
