@audphile1
thanks!
as an update to this thread the sound was decent with my cary slp 05 preamp feeding the pass labs xa30.8 by compensating for the gain missmatch using the single ended outputs and lowering the level controls to aprox 30 percent. the preamp single ended gain is 17db while the balanced gain is 24db.
the sound from the balanced connection was unrefined and unacceptable no matter what i tried.
however the single ended output seemed to lose much of the magic. it was still not as refined sounding as i like, the soundstage was smaller and lower in height, possibly because the balanced out goes through another tube stage and dynamics were not as good, possibly by throttling the preamp level controlls too much.
i bought some rothwell xlr attenuators which reduces the balanced output by 10db, down to 14 db net gain.
this did the trick with no apparent negative impacts to the sound. the huge sound stage and dynamics are back along with a more refined sound.
moral of the story is that too much net gain between preamp and amp has a bad influence on sound quality.
i am not sure how to make a rule of thumb but 44db total gain is about perfect and i have had success with 39 db net gain with other systems and now 40 db with my current attenuated system. 50 db net gain is definitely too much and 35 db is too little and anemic.
