balance and single ended what I heard

This just proves there are NO absolutes and most opinions---well, are just that.
Noise cancellation is one major benefit to being balanced and most improvements are in this area. To hear what you are hearing would lead me to believe that your equipment at some point is not truly balanced or some other overlooked factor in connections is skewing your results.
Balanced connections in and of themselves will not cause what you are hearing.
Balanced connections will not prove useful if one leg is grounded (as mentioned above.)
My thoughts would be to not conclude that all balanced systems behave as yours. This is certainly not the case. I use balanced equipment in the truest sense of the word and balanced connectors DO improve the performance.
A quick example of equipment with XLR's that is not balanced would be the Sony SCD-1 that a lot of folks like. It is a waste to use balanced connectors with it.
Another example is the Aesthetix Calypso preamp that actually converts single ended to balanced internally not visa versa if you happen to ignore their recommendation and/or have to use single ended.

maybe thats it,maybe the outputs aren't truly balanced, I guess I will call Mac and see what they say...at the very least I would have figured they would sound about the same if that were true, but like you said above there aren't any absolutes

Balanced interfaces is a different subject than complementary circuit topography. There is nothing wrong with generating a balanced line output interface out of non-complementary circuitry so as to exploit the merits of that kind of interface. The suggestion that such a design is almost deceitful is absurd.

The best known example of complementary circuitry is the push-pull power amp output stage, and there is a small army of people saying that single ended is better. But that is the subject of a different thread.

hey lemme@lone,what a pure crap response,this is the 2nd thread in recent weeks where an arogant response was left about a guys gear.

people put alot of time & cash not to mention heart & soul into their rigs & im quite sure that kinda response was not warranted.

mike.

superhonestben,i liked the mc252 so much that i went ahead & bought a 2nd mc252 & im running them as monoblocks with the c2200 preamp.

your thread got me wondering so i tried balanced against the rca inputs,there was a huge difference but my experience was the exact oposite,the xlr's not only produced a better & cleaner overall sound but my overall volume increased too with the xlr's.

the volume wasnt just increased either the xlr's raised the level where the amps began to klip,im leaving mine hooked up with xlr's from now on & im using cheapie xlr's too.

i wonder if eldartford called it right & there isnt somthing going on with your interconnects,a cheap way to try another set of xlr's is to go to your local guitar center & pick up a set,usually around $15 or $20 for a 3ft pair.

BTW,i love the mc252 c2200 combo,i went from a mc500 to running the 2 mc252's as monoblock's & im extremly satisfied as they are very musical amps with big balls too!

mike.