As I have some experiance combining the Hypex driven subwoofermodels of my YG system with SET tubes for the satellites and as I am currently looking to theoretically merry Gryphon Poseidon mid/high's with the active Gryphon subwoofers, I like to share some thoughts.
Apart from any sound / performance results, the set up should work from the technical point of view, which is complex in it's own.
Let us have a look to the Aesthetix IO, which is a typical tube PreAmp, expecting high Impedance figures at the Amplifier side:
Aesthetix IO
Output impedance: 1K ohms SE, 600 ohms balanced
Recommended load: 10K ohms or greater (SE), 20K ohms or greater (Balanced)
( not using SET and XLR in parallel)
Looking to the Pendragon , it shows, that the XLR input would fit the bill with 40kohm:
Gryphon Pendragon
active crossover section included.
Input Impedans, balanced (20-20000Hz) 40KOhm
Input Impedans, single ended (20-20000Hz) 20KOhm
Gain +32dB
First logic would be, to combine the IO with a Gryphon amp and and the Pendragon on XLR. But unfortunately, the Gryphon Amps do have an input impedance between 10 kohm and 20 kohm which would give (using parallel cabling) a parallel input impedance of 8kohm or 13kohm, which is far below the IO can drive! So hard distortion would be the result.
The other aspect is the gain of the amps, the Pendragon has a gain of 32 db, the Gryphon amps do have 31dbm which is within the range you can adjust.
Let us have a look to the
NAT New Magma:
Input impedance 100 kohms
Gain +27.50 dB
Using at the IO the XLR output for the Pendragon bass towers (40 kohm) and the RCA output in parallel for the NAT New Magma, the IO would see a combined load of 29 kohm, which is within the Threshold.
But we would face a gain problem, as the NAT new Magma has only 27,5 db, which is 4,5db less than the bass tower.
But I do still assume, that this is within the adjustable range, as the most power amplifiers do have a gain of 26db, so the Pendragon Tower should cope with this.
If not, you can put the RCA cable to the Pendragon, which will give the basstower a arround 3db less powered signal and use the XLR cable for the NAT new Magma, which would make no difference , as the NAT is SET anyhow.
This is a pure technical view to the situation.
My current plan is similar, as I like to combine Gryphon Poseidon (if I can manage to get them) basstowers to Air Tight SET or NAT SE3 SET amps, having an Air Tight tube Preamp.
I heard Poseidon and Pendragon with Unison Reference tube Preamp and Unison Reference tube mono Amps, the results were great. On Poseidon, I had the comparison to Gryphon Mephisto Poweramp, I preferred the Unison mono amps.