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Re: tube preamp hiss; will balanced cables help?

Hi.
Hiss is normal on tube preamps, because most preamps have the volume potentiometer before the tubes/transistors/FETS.
Since tubes are usually more noisy than transistors, you will hear some hiss if your speaketrs are efficient, your system's gain is too high OR the tubes are shot.
One thing you can do about it is to buy NOS low-noise tubes.
Let us know what kind of tubes your preamp uses, maybe I or other inmates can suggest a few alternatives.
BTW, Balanced cables DO reduce noise, mainly hum, which is equal but opposite in each phase (low frequency noise).
Hiss is random by nature (thermal noise), therefore impossible to cancel via balanced connections.
A balanced preamp will have double the gain and double the hiss of the same circuit single-ended, therefore the high-frequency signal-to-noise ratio remains the same. The low frequency S/N ratio is improved by 6 db due to mutual cancelation of the a balanced circuit.
I hope this helps
Carlos



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