Yeah, I'm sure I'll be paying too much simply for the balanced connections, but I like the connections so much more than RCA, and I'm paranoid about noise in my system. I don't like that the general advice for turning the volume up if you have fan noise/hiss/slight humming that you want to drown out. I'll also do whatever sound isolation I can afford in the basement, too. The less ambient noise I have, the more headroom I'll have on my amp.