What tube pre amp match up with a solid state amp

Wow thanks for all the info. Some of it went over my head but all very usefull
PETE

Wolfman; with the amp or preamp powered off, measure resistance between pins 1 and 3 with an Ohmmeter. If you see something less than 1 Ohm then the pins are tied together like Atmasphere says. If the meter reads open (infinity) then it must be a true balanced circuit.

My ML 433 and ARC LS27 are a great match. A used LS 27 should just fit within the top end of your price range.

Wolf, I bet your preamp is balanced. But like a lot of modern studio gear, the outputs are probably set up so that the non-inverting occurs between pin 2 and pin 1 (ground) while the inverting output occurs between pin 3 and pin 1.

How it *should* work to get cable immunity is that the signal occur between pin 2 and pin 3 while pin 1 is ignored and only used for shield. But today a large amount of studio gear ignores this grounding issue, thus you are hearing differences in cables in the studio. Trust me on this one- the reason the balanced line system came into existence was to solve that very problem. I can do into the history of it if you like; but in a nutshell what is happening is that if you hear differences in cables then the equipment does not support the standard.

My pro mixers with balanced, low impedence ins and outs certainly "support the standard" or I wouldn't be able to use 100' snakes for clean signal...Better mic cables do sound better in my experience, as I noticed when recording music for a TV show we used to do...I was recording direct to digital with a Mackie board using a high sensitivity phantom powered condensor mic and used very good headphones...the better cables were clearly better sounding.