Truly Balanced Cheaper Preamplifiers?

What does balanced get you? Higher signal to noise ratio
Lower nose floor, the ability to run long interconnects, others
Therefore, expensive cables aren’ts as important also.

I love the Schiit Freya+Blue Jeans XLR
you up and running for under $1200

The volume system is one of the very best anywhere.

Tubes can be instantly bypassed from the remote.
Unbalanced inputs can be balanced.
Changing tubes is easy.
Two sets of RCA outs for subs or recording or broadcasting via Bluesound