A bit overwhelmed, need preamp advice

Hello! New Guy here...

I think the pre-amp must be the most challenging component to buy. It's like the master controller and brains of the whole system and I am having a hard time with narrowing my choices down and was looking for some advice.

When I setup my home theater system it was a much easier decision and I ended up with a Proceed AVP-S. Well, I've been selling all my HT gear and want to move back to a simple but very musical two channel setup.

Speakers are Snell B-Minors, my amp is a Bryston 4B-SST, and the front end is a California Audio Labs CL-25 but I am getting rid of the Proceed and the Cal Audio and moving to a RAID1 music server setup that I've built and ripped my 2000 CD's to Flac with exact audio copy.

I need to find a replacement for the Proceed and the only thing that will be connected to the pre-amp is a Musical Fidelity M1DAC.

The Proceed is a little on the dry analytic side, and I was looking for something that would add a bit of warmth, focus and 3 dimensionality and better depth and soundstaging. But not too much warmth and bloom!

One of the challenges is that whatever I get, the bass has to be pretty controlled which is why I got the Bryston. The Snell's have a 12" woofer and the Bryston is able to really take control of it.

My budget is about $1500 usd and I'm looking for some suggestions.

I was thinking of the Rogue Metis Preamplifier with the Magnum upgrades for $1,495.

Or the Placette Passive linestage with the remote for $1595.00

I was hoping I could get some thoughts from folks that have had these and let me know what you thought. The other thing is what are the downsides to a passive linestage? I've heard you give up dynamics for transparency and I'm not sure I can live with that.

I listen to literally all kinds of music so a good soundstage, accuracy, musicality, and dynamic range is important. Sorry for rambling but please chime in if you have any thoughts.

Thanks,

David