I don't know what's inside your PH2, but AR is not known for balanced circuits.
I think what @lewm is saying is that Audio Research equipment is not AES48 compliant.
Mike
Phono stage options - balanced with XLR both input and output...
I really like my Elac PPA-2, it's surprisingly good and has bested the few others I've tried. I use XLR/balanced for input and output (for the first time with this one).
It is starting to glitch, and I am considering purchasing another one ('preowned'), but before I do wanted to check here what options you know of in terms of fully balanced phono stages with XLR input and output.