Balanced vs Unbalanced?

Atmasphere; one question. are you saying, in an xlr set up, that the interconnectors, as long as they are of reasonable quality, really do not matter? I have found this to be true. you seem to know a lot about this. I would value your opinion and any explination. not to technical please. thanks

Koegz, in a nutshell, that is the whole point of balanced line operation. The system was created to eliminate interconnect cable problems.

There is a standard that has to be conformed to in order for this to be true. If the conformance is not there, you will still hear differences in the cable.

The primary hanging point with most high end gear is the 600 ohm termination standard. What this means is that the equipment should be able to drive a load of 600 ohms (which might be at the input of the amplifier) without difficulty (for example loss of bass). For tubes this usually means an output transformer, or very large coupling caps, 100uf or more. Most high end manufacturers don't want to put in such a large capacitor at the output of the preamp, as it will color the sound and for the same reason aren't usually too keen about an output transformer either. That's why conformance to the standard is rare.

Ralph, I get what you are saying, and I may try it sometime, but I don't use a bypass cap. I have the filament current of my input tube going through the cathode resistor to establish bias. That R is only a few ohms so too low to do what you say.

Thanks for the idea though.