You can, but you also need two DAC chips for each left and right channels, which is why some DACs can be fed an individual channel and feed into a balanced amp's inputs, but you need two of the same DAC to do so, so it's much more expensive.
Balanced is essentially trying to eliminate cross-talk between channels which might create harmonic distortion into next or both channels. Typically the noticeability is rare until you get high-end...
