Audiophile hi-fi market and balanced connections Options

[Brand]

Even many cheap-ish $100 sound cards have balanced connections.
Yet, for a $4,295 "audiophile" amp, it's somehow normal to have unbalanced analog only. (But hey, you get a "Digital Filter Slope" switch..)

Am I missing something or is this just regular audiofoolery at work?

I was doing some RMAA tests and the cables were very susceptible to outside interference. Place them next to some other (power) cables and you easily see 20dB of extra noise in the measurements.
Sure, it's not really a problem with short cables that you keep away from interference, but for premium/audiophile equipment I'd still expect balanced connections to be the standard by now.

This post has been edited by Brand: Aug 26 2012, 14:39

[Brand]

Well, to be fair, the average $4k hi-fi amp might include balanced inputs (I'm not much into hi-fi these days). I had a quick glance at the Marantz and Yamaha offerings and the most expensive models do have that.

But I don't see any technical or cost-associated reason for this to be restricted to premium priced models. Balanced I/O takes a bit more space, but nothing an average size hi-fi amp couldn't handle.
In "pro audio" you get it with $60 soundcards.