Cable connection

Since the big advantage of balanced is to eliminate any noise picked up by the cable then it would make sense to use it where ever you can. Though the lengths of cables we use for audio setups are so short I have to wonder if balanced would make any difference in most setups.

I have never owned a balanced cable,so all I can do is repeat from a Stereophile article/from years ago. It goes something like this,that unless your system is true balanced from source to amp you loose the benifit of balanced. In this case your pre wouldn't be yeilding all it could because it is being fed a single ended signal.
Me,? in your case I would run bal. pre to amp.'Couldn't hurt and may well help.