New TT : Balanced vs. Unbalanced Connection?

I say, residential, short runs: no advantage, 

I do like that XLR connectors lock in place, but I changed to locking rca's to solve that.

extra gain: I did get a SMALL amount of gain out of my Sony xa5400 CD player's XLR compared to it's rca out, but certainly not enough to matter. No audible difference.

typically, like a DAC, wiser to keep phono stage separate for potential change.

In my case my vintage McIntosh mx110z tube tuner/preamp has a wonderful sounding MM phono eq built in (two inputs). I run my tonearms thru a SUT to the mx110z's MM input. I never think about changing to something else. If it blew up, I would get another without bothering to compare. Friends bring their phono stages here to compare with it. My office, for simplicity, I use the built-in MM/MC in my little Luxman, sounds darn good but never compared it to the mx110z.

Features:

you mentioned bigger meters. They will be fun for a week or two, then they might be bothersome, make sure you can turn their lights off or out of circuit.

check the hidden features, you need to read the manual to find things they don't tell you about, like remote balance .... and, check the buttons on the remotes. Many high end makers don't even show the remote. My Cayin remote is solid aluminum, very nice to look and feel/use, much preferred to boring plastic remote, you use them every time you listen. 

I've never run into a home situation where line level XLR reduced noise... but I have been in some shows in hotels where noise pickup was almosts unavoidable with RCA. 

Due to the low signal level and high gain needed by cartridges I would not be surprised if things were different, not to mention the number of ground loop issues I've experienced/seen on turntables which vanish using balanced inputs.

Want to be clear that the balanced line level connections are not the same electrically as for a phono stage, so I would assess XLR noise issues differently for a turntable as for, say a CD player.

I use balanced everywhere in my system except from TT to phono preamp since the VPI Classic 1 and PS Audio Stellar do not offer it. I do notice a bit higher gain with balanced connections so it would make sense that it may be helpful with extremely low output mc cartridges. However my Lyra Kleos at 0.5 mV does not qualify. In fact it sounds better on the Stellar low gain setting than the recommended medium one, hence balanced may be a detriment in my specific setup. 

Baylinor, The VPI Classic being a tt certainly has nothing to do with the balanced vs SE distinction. So I assume you mean to say that the VPI tonearm is not wired for a balanced connection. But I’d guess it most certainly is. It probably offers separate hot and ground for each channel in SE mode, plus a ground wire probably attached to the tonearm body, 5 wires in total. All you would have to do is remove the RCA plugs, and replace them with XLRs, where hot goes to pin2 on the XLR, ground (now negative phase) goes to pin3, and the ground wire to pin1. but yes, you would also need a balanced phono stage. The PS Audio Stellar is by reputation so good that maybe you need not bother. And it does have balanced outputs.

@lewm 

I thank you for your detailed description of an unbalanced to balanced conversion for a tonearm. Something to keep in my files.