I believe most Ayre gear is fully balanced internally, a premium design with double the components vs. single ended. So if you use a single ended cable to communicate with a fully balanced unit, the single ended signal will be converted to balanced internally before it's processed (and converted to single ended prior to output on single ended cable) - unnecessary step(s) if you use balanced interconnects. The reverse is also true of other manufacturers who offer balanced connections into units that are not fully balanced internally. This is one reason why manufacturers (other than for long cable runs, which favor balanced) may favor one interconnect implementation over the other.
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