Balanced vs Unbalanced?

Thank you, smokester, for the clear explanation. It will not deter those with personal preferences, unfortunately.

Kal

I don't know what the heck you mean by separating the scientific merits of balanced and audio merits of balanced.

It seems like picking a fight without understanding the topic.

The merits...scientific and audio...the two are interlinked:
Lower noise floor due to EMI/RFI rejection
Lower noise floor due to absence of ground loop hum
Better high end and low end extension and resolution when using long interconnects

With some components I've had, the differences have been profound.

Balance is only better if the signal from the source is balanced from the start, at the digital to conversion. I have owned several CD players & DACs that where that was the case and balanced did sound better. However I have owned a few CD players that had balanced output but the signal was split and inverted at the output stage that does not sound as good as single ended. It depends on the design. For a curve I have all single ended input sources, but between my Pass Labs XP 10 & my XA30.5 I use balanced. I have tried both balanced & single ended & I prefer balanced. Go figure