The length of the cable is not relevant- balanced will sound better even if its only 6".
There are several advantages to balanced operation, particularly with a phono setup. First, the cartridge is a balanced source. That is why you have that separate ground wire when you run a phono single-ended, that ground wire that no other source seems to need :)
Now its not just because the cartridge is balanced. The reason the balanced line system came into being was to eliminate or reduce artifact from the interconnect cable (it was the phone company that benefited from this initially, but the recording industry saw the same advantage and switched over right away).
Now you would think that getting rid of the sound of the cable would be a thing that any audiophile would want!
In practice, it does work out that the cable ceases to be a variable in the sound of the LP playback when you run the cartridge in the balanced domain, as long as the cable is built properly. If it is, ground will be on pin 1 of the XLR and will not have to be hooked up separately.
If the phono section is also balanced and differential, you have a further advantage of lower distortion and lower noise. This is because distortion is not compounded at each stage throughout the preamp. In addition, a differential gain state in theory has 6 db less noise that the equivalent single-ended gain stage. This means that you may not need as much gain with a differential phono section. Less gain stages means it might be that much more transparent.
People ask often why we don't have separate outboard phono sections. The reason is connectivity to the line section. If you really want transparency (and its analog- who doesn't??) then you don't want the connectivity of connectors and interconnect cables getting in the way (as well as the variable of what sort of load the phono section is being asked to drive). As long as your power supplies are up to it, you have a better chance of getting it sound right if the phono section is built-in to the preamp.
So we rely on our line stage to drive the interconnect and it can easily drive over 100 feet, even though its an all-tube preamp. That way you can put the turntable and preamp where you want it (and hide the cables), instead of being stuck between the loudspeakers (which is not usually the best place, and often does not fare well with the WAF).
There are several advantages to balanced operation, particularly with a phono setup. First, the cartridge is a balanced source. That is why you have that separate ground wire when you run a phono single-ended, that ground wire that no other source seems to need :)
Now its not just because the cartridge is balanced. The reason the balanced line system came into being was to eliminate or reduce artifact from the interconnect cable (it was the phone company that benefited from this initially, but the recording industry saw the same advantage and switched over right away).
Now you would think that getting rid of the sound of the cable would be a thing that any audiophile would want!
In practice, it does work out that the cable ceases to be a variable in the sound of the LP playback when you run the cartridge in the balanced domain, as long as the cable is built properly. If it is, ground will be on pin 1 of the XLR and will not have to be hooked up separately.
If the phono section is also balanced and differential, you have a further advantage of lower distortion and lower noise. This is because distortion is not compounded at each stage throughout the preamp. In addition, a differential gain state in theory has 6 db less noise that the equivalent single-ended gain stage. This means that you may not need as much gain with a differential phono section. Less gain stages means it might be that much more transparent.
People ask often why we don't have separate outboard phono sections. The reason is connectivity to the line section. If you really want transparency (and its analog- who doesn't??) then you don't want the connectivity of connectors and interconnect cables getting in the way (as well as the variable of what sort of load the phono section is being asked to drive). As long as your power supplies are up to it, you have a better chance of getting it sound right if the phono section is built-in to the preamp.
So we rely on our line stage to drive the interconnect and it can easily drive over 100 feet, even though its an all-tube preamp. That way you can put the turntable and preamp where you want it (and hide the cables), instead of being stuck between the loudspeakers (which is not usually the best place, and often does not fare well with the WAF).