I don't think the XLR benifit is limited to the natural noise canceling properties of the balanced 3 wire configuaration; I think the driver electronics are better on the balanced section. I use it into a DEQX (I used to use a Behr2496 xover, and use unbalanced out to the amps. The run to amps is short enough to not collect much noise, though full ballanced is in the cards for later. Extensive A/B testing tells me the balanced electronic in this machine are better (not that balanced is always better, done cheaply it will suffer) The behr will auto switch to single ended mode when it senses the jumper on the XLR/RCA adaptor...