As always, the balanced/unbalanced thing can be open ended. I Used, and still do, DH Labs BL1 interconnects, I happened to own both balanced and unbalanced at the time I had my Pass gear. The main reason was my amp sat in between my Maggies, and the gear rack was about 13 feet away. For the fun of it, I tried both situations, same gear, same cabling other than connections. I could hear no differences. While it was fairly quick to change over between the pairs, who knows how much that space of time in between is enough to skew the testing.
My current gear was designed as balanced circuitry front to back. In these circumstances, I utilize balanced connections/cabling, and still use the same DH Labs. Again, can I hear the difference? Very subtle at best(Maybe I should be called old cloth ears...). If I was in an electrically noisy environment, and much longer cabling than my 16 footers, maybe it might be more apparent, or not....These days, I find myself not really caring, I am beyond all the foo and muss of it all and just get on with listening to my music. But I realize there are many that still enjoy these types of tests, or chin stroking etc. trying to figure it all out, and that is okay too! Go with what works and sounds best to your ears! Enjoy!