When I switched from my X5 to X7 I stumbled upon the option "AM3 balanced" in Brookos review. I started browsing around what this is all about and got the feeling, this is something that actually may make sense.
My first try was then with my TripleFi 10 and the FiiO cable (RC-UE2B).
The results were really impressive! But I didn't know if maybe just the cable was so much better or if it really also was the balancing. So I tried my other headphones too.
Next was Shure SE535 with a Fidue A83 replacement cable that is balanced and fits to SE535. Same impressive result.
Now I had to try the more difficult ones. Over ear AKG K400 and K500.
For the K400 I bought a cheap video camera cable that had a 2.5mm balanced plug and soldered it myself to the K400 drivers. The result looks crappy, but hey it sounds fantastic !!!
Next round was using a K701 cable, solder the four inside wires in a balanced way to the K500 and also manually solder a 2.5mm plug after cutting of the original K701 plug. This result looks like original AKG and ... yes also this one sounds better!
To sum it up I guess I can assure that we should all go balanced. It seems to be clearly better that unbalanced. I compared to AM3 unbalanced and AM2A.
Which just leaves me with one question: Why is the industry not only offering balanced mode? It seems not to be more expensive and creates better sound. Any opinions about it?

P.S. IN all the praising for balanced I almost forgot: This is about an AM3 review. Since I have all modules I would rate them like this:
AM3 balanced > AM2A > AM2/AM5 > AM3 unbalanced > AM1
But all on a high level. I could also live with any of them alone.