Tube Pre-amp BAT, ARC, EAR, Sonic Frontiers

ARC LS* and REF preamps are balanced, same as BAT.
On balanced ARC preamps there is actually a switch that you have to set to "Balanced" if you are running with XLRs. BAT just doesn't provide RCA ins/outs, but they do provide an XLR-RCA adapters, so you can use whatever either RCA or XLR.

yeah Audphile1
that's what I know
i was just wandering what did Atmasphere mean by: " Snarkonmars, I don't think SF ever made a balanced preamp, although they have the connections. At least I say that in the context of being fully balanced throughout, like our preamps are."

:-)

I recon that fully balanced preamp does not allow you to connect via RCA (XLR-RCA adapter is a compromise anyway). If you have option to connect with XLR and RCA this is just more flexible and universal...

I got rid of the Line 2. My P8i drives BAT monoblocks directly via its balanced outputs and a pair of 3m interconnects.

Snarkonmars, what I meant was that some products have an XLR connection when the internal circuitry is single-ended. There is no advantage to the connector; the advantage lies in the topography.

BTW any balanced preamp will convert a single-ended signal to balanced without issue or degradation, as part of the normal operation of the preamp. We've not been providing single-ended connections for the most part (although we have always had 2 single-ended line inputs) in an effort to convince the user to hook things up right and get the most out of the preamp as a result (I'm sure that's why BAT has does it that way too). That's why we've always had a balanced input for the phono (in fact we were the first to offer that feature), as it is a balanced source anyway.