[atoav]

Even a 80 Euro Berhinger USB audio interface has balanced outs nowadays.

I think this is more of a cultural divide than anything, with tradition being a big part of it. In the olden days balanced I/O had to be done using specialized transformers. Unless you got really expensive well wound ones these could degrade your signal significantly — that might've contributed to a bad rep in audiophile circles. But today you can balance or unbalance electronically with indistinguishable fidelity and... ironically a lot of the analog "warmth" people love in old recordings came from the transformer on the inputs of old mixing desks.

There is really no reason to use unbalanced today other than being really pressed for money or running so short cables that it won't matter - and even then you could do better than RCA connectors.

[mschuster91]

> Even a 80 Euro Berhinger USB audio interface has balanced outs nowadays.

Yeah but who outside of people already interested in DJing buys that kind of stuff. It just looks ugly, unlike your classic home theater setup.

Out of "looks decent (=passes the Spouse Acceptance Factor test)", "reasonably affordable" and "has decent quality", choose two... unless you got a partner accepting you literally putting up a 2m truss with lasers, movingheads and a strobe in your living room that could compete with a mid-range disco, and a 1.200W fogger on the ground. I'm lucky enough to have such a partner, but I'd say about 99% of people don't.

[galaxyLogic]

There's something to it that the equipment should look beautiful in your living room, Bang and Olofssen -style. Music is beautiful, equipment playing it should be too. Or at least it enhances the experience.

[atoav]

Yeah, no issue with that. But the connectors are rarely front-facing and thus not really of aesthetical concern.

It is perfectly possible to build beautiful balanced equipment.

[atoav]

Yeah it is a cheap mobile usb interface. Beauty is not the name of the game there — which is why I used it to argue against balanced being a feature of expensive equipment.

Balanced outputs have nothing to do with the aesthetics of the object. And I choose option 4 — build it yourself — then it can be done cheap and look however decent, massive, invisible, ridiculous or whatever the aesthetical ven diagram between your second half and you looks like. And it can have balanced I/O if needed ; )