Are passive preamps better?

I have tried five different passive units. Initially, I am always struck by the purity of the passives, but when I put in a quality active, I end up selling the passives. They have no pace or dynamics of live music. I seem, however, to be the exception in that I have had a solid state line stage for the last five years, the H-Cat P-12. Repeatedly, I have tried tube preamps, which I had always preferred, but always come back to the H-Cat.

BTW, I failed to note in my post above, I have been using a Wadia direct to an amp and one thing has become clear from my experimenting with it thru a passive and active line stage. The active line stage was additive and the passive was subtractive (better or worse is not the issue as that depends on the tonal/sonic quality preferences of the listener). If the synergy is right for you, and you're into digital this could be the way to go.

Probably obvious and redundant for most here. FWIW.

Well said: "that depends on the tonal/sonic quality preferences of the listener". I also experienced that sense of amazement[?] when I first used passives, because they certainly are different, but ultimately I felt the need to go back to active, I suspect this is a very common trajectory. ok, 65%/35%.

Albertporter...First of all, I do agree with you that an active preamp usually works best. I guess I would agree with your original comment if it said "lack of signal degradation" rather than "signal enhancement".

I don't know when passive preamps became commercially available, but several decades ago I made one to suit my particular (rather unique) matrix multichannel system. I had plenty of gain, and my solid state source components had the low output impedance to drive tube amps having high input impedance.

By the way, an integrated amp or a receiver essentially has a passive preamp in it (without the external interconnects).

By the way, an integrated amp or a receiver essentially has a passive preamp in it (without the external interconnects).

Like the Ayre AX-7e.