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Playing the devil's advocate here:

Howdy

Balanced power isn't simply 120V, it's safety ground is at 60V relative to either side instead of 0V relative to neutral and 120V relative to hot. Since this isn't 'standard' it may be violating the assumptions of the designers of various gear. The assumption is that unless their is a failure the ground is within a few volts of the neutral leg. There are a lot of ways of tying the safety ground to the signal ground, thru a resistor, a fuse, a gas discharge tube, a "ground lift" switch, etc. Not all of these react well to a constant 60V difference when just a few volts are expected. One can easily imagine audio degradation if not outright failure with balanced power on some components.

If you insist on balanced power IMO you should contact the manufacturer of every piece of equipment that you are going to plug in to it and ask if their design works with balanced power. If it doesn't don't blame them, it's balanced power that's the oddball.

I also appreciate equipment that checks it's assumptions about the ground and shuts down if the ground is more than a few volts different than the neutral. This indicates to me that they are interested in my safety.

-Ted

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