What tube pre amp match up with a solid state amp

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.

Ralph (Atmasphere), thanks for what as I see it is really excellent info and background, including the proof that is provided in your first post above, which strikes me as extremely persuasive. A few days ago I provided a link to that post in a couple of the ongoing cable threads.

Wolf, keep in mind that even if the equipment has very low output impedance and very good drive capability, it does not meet the standard if it connects XLR pin 1 to circuit ground, as opposed to chassis.

As Ralph indicated, and as is indicated in Figure 1b and some of the text in this paper, it is very common for pro equipment (as well as consumer equipment) to connect pin 1 to circuit ground, in violation of the standard.

Ralph, is there any threshold that can be defined for how low the resistance that may be designed into a component between circuit ground and chassis ground can be without defeating the purposes of the standard?

Also, to eliminate interconnect cable differences is it necessary that the component output actually BE driving a low load impedance (2000 ohms or less, to use your figure), or is it just necessary that it be CAPABLE of doing that?

Thanks again. Best regards,
-- Al

I'm gathering all my pro gear together tonight to talk to it about "violating the standard." I need to know what violations are taking place and why, and will include tip/ring/sleeve jacks and all my outboard gear...it won't be pretty.

Wolf, don't take any guff from any of those components. Tell them they better toe the line, or else!

Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Al, I've not seen anything that defines a resistance to ground as a standard. I know that you can have some, as long as the circuit does not put current through it.

But I think the classic example is that of an output transformer, as one might see in a Neumann microphone. In this case the transformer is driving the output with its secondary, which is a single winding without a center tap. One side of the winding is pin 2 and the other side is pin 3. Ground is simply the circuit ground of the mic, but has no continuity to pin 2 or 3. IOW the transformer output is floating.

You touched on an interesting point about the load vs the capability to drive that load. I have found that the capacity to drive the load plays a huge role, about 80% but for that last bit of cable artifact to go away the load must be there as well. Flipping the coin over- if the capacity to drive the load is absent, then its moot and there will be cable colorations.

I remember back in the 1990s Stereophile published some letters to the editor from an audio engineer who was basically taking audiophiles and the high end audio industry to task because as he put it 'cables don't make a difference' and its all 'snake oil'. I think Stereophile published the letter mostly because of the humor value as everyone knows that cables do make a difference, but what neither party really made clear is that the engineer was working almost exclusively with balanced cables while audiophiles were using single ended.