Somewhat of a noob here. Hi!
Watching this topic with interest as I am also looking for a reasonably priced balanced DAC. The thing is, I don't think I need a case at all for the DAC since I am building my own experimental design of a single case with a Raspberry, a DAC and a Purifi 1ET400A setup inside. For thermal and functional reasons I'd rather rip the DAC board out from whichever retail case and place it bare in there.
I thought the Khadas Tone Board looked pretty decent: nice SINAD score, no unnecessary case. So I went ahead and ordered it, but now after researching more I'm a bit afraid of unavoidable ground loop noise forming with the unbalanced RCA to XLR connection. Besides, as I understand, the higher standard 4v output of balanced outputs seems to give higher quality options for what kind of buffer setup could work with the 1ET400A.
Would anyone more experienced like to shed any light: do you think in my case, for a very short run from the DAC to a buffer on front of 1ET400A, the actual merits of balanced would be of any significance?