Does balanced interconnect sound beter than RCA?

I have an all ballanced system so I am not biased when I say that it is absolutly a non issue in most cases. If you have a ballanced piece of equipment, it may sound identical going through the ballanced or single ended/it may sound better going through the single ended and it may sound better through the ballanced just because the single ended connections use cheaper wire than the ballanced!! This is often the case so there is NO WAY to tell unless you listen. And besides many ballanced connections are just turned into single ended on the inside and the unit is not ballanced at all-it just has the connections! You have to have a complete ballanced fully symetrical system for the ballanced to do any good. And then there are still trade-offs where many people would still prefer the same system using the single ended connections. It's a matter of taste.

There's a really good thread in AudioCircle that deals w/ this topic. I really like my friend Dejan Veselinovic's (AKA the Serbian Hope) answer, as it is original and thoughtful. He says RCA usually sounds beter than balanced if the ground is filtered. My current setup happens to use RCA interconnects and a 3KW, 220V/110V ONEAC islolation transformer/filter that has a patented "Virtual Ground" feature that isolates the building's ground from the transformer's. My system is real quiet--spooky quiet.

http://audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=8355

The answer to your question is perhaps. But you need to perform comparisons in your system to be certain.

I won't pretend to be an expert, but to the best of my knoweldge, a system need not be fully balanced in order to obtain any sonic benefits from using balanced or XLR connections and cables.

In fact, truly balanced components are generally much more expensive and rumor has it that any sonic benefits of truly balanced components are often times negligible at best.

Depending on equipment design, (and without regard for true balance design) there are several potentials where balanced ic's can provide sonic benefits to a given system:

o Balanced connections can sometimes provide a lowered distortion and/or noise floor.

o Balanced connections typically put out approx. 4 volts when compared to the approx. 2 volts from single-ended connections. This doubling of the voltage alone can provide little to much in the way of macro-dynamic swings and more pronounced bass in some to many systems. Thus giving you a little bit or a lot more of that live bite, just like live music.

o Balanced connections, as opposed to single-ended connections, usually allow for much greater cable lengths with little or no signal degradation.

Components need not be fully balanced to take advantage of any of these benefits. The components only need to provide balanced inputs and outputs.

Personally, I wouldn't want to leave home without balanced ic's.

-IMO

Balanced lines provide imunity to noise pickup, and are of great benefit to pro sound folk who work with a tangle of long wires. Their benefits are mostly irrelevant in the home audio situation.
The higher voltage signal (4 volts vs 2) would tend to help. However, if your preamp has good output voltage capability, (most do) one can crank up the gain in the preamp, and lower the gain in the power amp, and run single-ended lines at higher voltage. I do that.