After reading the APEX Pinnacle review in TAS and also after reading Jason Stoddard's (Schiit) comments regarding balanced amplifiers, it seems unclear on what constitutes a real balanced amplifier.
First, given Jason's comments from the 6moons review on the Lyr: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/schiit/10.html
"... Just a few questions to ask are, is balanced gear simply converting the inputs to single-ended? Or is it creating the differential signal with a separate gain stage after the main one? There are a bunch of ways to do it wrong. Real balanced gear is differential all the way through without splitters and summers and other band aids. This means among other things a more complex gain stage, 4-gang pots and 4-pole input selectors. It's worth it though not just for the elimination of ground current effects but for common-mode noise cancellation - very very nice for headphones."
Next, here's some interesting Pete Millett quotes from TAS APEX Pinnacle magazine review (Issue 214):
""The amp is a two-stage, single-ended amp, with transformer-coupled balanced or unbalanced inputs and outputs"
"The input (balanced or unbalanced) is ... fed through a Lundahl input transformer that drives an unbalanced (DACT) stepped attenuator."
And a very interesting quote --
" He says 'the market for this type of equipment demands balanced headphone outputs. Personally I am unconvinced that they're better. In any case, I wanted a single-ended amp. I'm not a big fan of the sound of fully balanced headphone amps. Hence the transformers.' "
There are other quotes of interest, please see the article for yourself.
* However this is all academic as someone already previously posted, what's most important is how it sounds ... and the consensus seems to be it's an amazing headphone amplifier.