James Boyk wrote:

Why do you think a transformer is necessary with tubes? My preamp
doesn't use them. And why does input capacitance matter when coming from
mike impedance through shortish cables? You do *assume* things!

I guess we both do, don't we? You assume that everybody's goal is to
make a recording that's exactly the same as what happened in the
studio. I find a lot of things that happen in the studio are less than
magical, and I don't let that stop me from making magical albums.

I assume that somebody who's concerned with purity as much as you are
would take steps to optimize noise performance of a microphone
preamplifier by feeding a gain stage with something close to its ideal
source impedance. Plugging a low-impedance microphone into a tube
stage with essentially infinite impedance is less than ideal from a
noise perspective, and simultaneously throws away all the free gain you
get from a transformer. I'm not one to throw away 30 or 40 dB of
dynamic range just because cheap transformers color the audio. More
often than not, I LIKE that coloration (because I pick good
transformers) and I've got other, more enjoyable noise sources to meet
my needs on that end.

ulysses