I discussed this with Jud many years ago. His feeling was that
balanced was critical with long cable runs, such as in studios, but not
necessarily so with the lengths in most home audio systems. He said to
be truly balanced, as opposed to sudo-balanced, would require one
additional gain stage and he didn't believe that was worth the trouble
or cost.
These are common myths. You don't need any more gain stages (our balanced preamps only have 3 from LOMC phono input to main output). That makes for a signal path simpler than most preamps, apparently including the JA preamps.
The reason to go with balanced line is to eliminate cable **artifacts**- length is a side benefit so even six inches is long enough to realize an improvement! What that means to an audiophile is that an inexpensive cable can sound as good as one that cost over $1000/foot. IOW its all about greater neutrality. Of course the longer cables possible make putting the monoblock amps by the speaker a lot easier.
So even today we find manufacturers on both sides of the question.
This is true, and its because there is a balanced standard (also known as AES File 48) to which the manufacturer must adhere in order to gain all the benefits of balanced operation. Most high end audio manufacturers don't seem to acknowledge that the standard exists, so you hear about all sorts of variability! That is why in my prior post, I was careful to use the words 'if it is done right'.
