With the Little Labs STD, long cable lengths with sound loss are no longer a problem.
 
The STD is designed to extend a guitar cable long distances without signal loss. It uses a special cable with active electronics in the 1/4" plug that connects to the guitar (or pedal). This loads the pickup at the guitar correctly and converts it to a low impedance. This cable connects to an XLR-XLR mic cable of any length (not included), which connects to the base unit, which provides the power to the
special cable. The base unit has two outputs, so you can feed two amps (or a DI
and an amp) while keeping the guitar loaded with the same impedance as seeing one amp. It has a ground lift button to lift the ground if necessary to reduce problems associated with ground loops. Two nine-volt batteries (included) reside in the base unit and are user-replaceable.
 
Circuit topology:
The STD uses a single active element in the audio path, a field effect transistor
(FET) located in the 1/4" plug of the special cable. This FET is powered cleverly by the base unit's bipolar nine-volt supply (headroom for days). If the XLR cable is disconnected after use, the batteries will last a very long time. The input
impedance is one megohm, a typical guitar amp input impedance. The two outputs on the base unit are not transformer-isolated (like on our PCP) but will split to two amps while not loading pickups. A ground lift button lifts the ground on one output. The straight-wire single active component audio path is why it sounds better than the competition.

The Mercenary edition stamp on the STD comes from a long time audio dealer that is no more, Mercenary Audio. Mercenary gave that badge of approval to products that were unique, high quality, and had some say in the design. I'm happy to see that Little Labs still proudly displays this badge on STD. The STD has been in continuous production for twenty years. The STD might get an interesting update soon; stay tuned.