@kumar402 : no not really, there's no undue stress placed on the cable. XLR are very robust, but I wouldent be concerned with 1/4 trs either.
@Wheel Hoss : there is a power benefit to running the balanced headphone output, regardless of input source, in this case it's substantial.
@TK16: I have a truly balanced DAC, but im not sure im willing to even try and hear a difference between single ended and balanced, probably none but perhaps a slight theoretical benefit to balanced input. Slightly, likely inaudibly better SNR (maybe -3 or 4 db).
though it must be understood most/all balanced source output are higher voltage so a higher perceived volume at same position on volume dial. This will very easily make it appear to be a higher quality input method, but once volume matched will likely disappear entirely. I use the balanced out of my dac because it's there, and because it's technically the best. Though i've been tempted to switch to single ended because I also run a pair of JBL LSR305's out of the same DAC, and they seem to have more benefit to the balanced connection (eliminates a slight hum), though I decided to just ground lift them and continue on single ended.
Edit: it should also be noted, that some DAC's have a superior balanced output then their single ended. If your particularly DAC has a better balanced output stage, it will obviously make a much bigger difference then a DAC that has excellent single ended and balanced output. With regards to said DAC's that DO have a better balanced output, it's not so much that their balanced is better, but that their single ended is lacking. This is a complicated topic with many considerations, so the story continues, some cheap pro interfaces, and cheaper balanced implementations (aka THX789) are not even balanced, but just accept balanced signal and convert it to single ended internally. If you have a DAC like this, there is likely zero benefit and more probable degradation in sound quality to use balanced. Keep in mind the original purpose of balanced gear was simply to eliminate hum and noise on extremely long cable runs 100, 200 FT runs. It was only adopted by headphone community to extract that last 2% of quality, we are talking tiny gains of 1-5 DB of better SNR. However, most headphone amplifier that implement balanced do so to the "Detriment" of their single ended output. Because the way balanced circuit works you basically need 2 of everything, 1 per channel in the analog amplification circuit, so easy solution for single ended output is to disable one side. Now you just cut the power output in half for SE. It is quite possible to design SE with huge power output though, like LYR3. 9 watt into 32 ohm.
It's a great time to be in the hobby, I remember when some of the first high end balanced headphone amps came out, before we were even using the 4 pin xlr standard. Some of headroom's end game gear put out like 1 watt, maybe 1.5 watts of power into balanced connection, and cost 3000$. Now a 100$ magni can put out more power then that, and likely sound as good or better doing it. Great times
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