Source XLR to Balanced Preamp will increase gain?

Ralph,
I am not so tech savvy. Thank You for the heavy dose. I want to learn more. Can you please explain "differential" and "floating"? I understand that pin 2 is +ve while pin 3 is -ve. Based on your explanation I am tempted to try a RCA to XLR adapter on the IC that goes from my existing CDP to the TVC. I believe in this case the voltage that the TVC will remain at 2V instead of 4V which a true XLR designed CDP would provide.

Al,
My TVC is set for unity gain, as I had not opted for the 6db gain.

Milpai, the adaptor will not cause the circuit to be balanced. It simply allows you to hook things up.

Differential is where the circuit has an output based on the difference between two inputs, inverting and non-inverting.

'Floating' is where the output is independent of ground. Usually though it is referenced to ground in some way, although there is no signal current associated with the ground connection. You have a balanced TVC if I understand correctly; it should be capable of operating this way as all audio transformers can.

'Balanced' is two identical circuits but with opposite phases, inverted and non-inverted. How this **might** be different from differential is that it may not automatically convert a single-ended input to balanced, and it may not always produce one output from the difference of the two inputs.

IOW it is possible to have a balanced and differential circuit, and also one that is merely balanced but not differential. In terms of noise and performance, it is far more likely that the balanced differential circuit will perform better, and even better yet if it is floating.

Ralph,
Thank You very much for the detailed explanation. Made it so much easier to understand the "real balanced" concept.