Difference between active and passive preamps

If you have a high input impedence amp say above 10-20Kohms(not considerd high) try the FT Audio LW-1 for $500. some say it's not till you get into $3500 Active Pre-Amp's that you will get enoungh quality to be adequate.

Get a Low Capacitance Cable. You can use a Canare LV77 cable to get buy untill you find something better. They are something like $20.

I think the clarity and Transparency are the things I like most about using a Passive. I was using a Rotel Pre intil getting the LW-1 and it outshone the Rotel in every department!

amplifier consists of input circuit, driving circuit and output circuit.
a part of amplifier that consists of input circuit, a number of inputs and output is called preamplifier.
many amplifiers are basically built as whole i.e. preamp is included and only having one set of input at a time and one set of output. these amps realy need no preamplification and need only a volume controll and input selector wich is called passive preamplifier that has unity maximum gain or 0dB.
along with passive preamps there are also electronic volume controlls that have buffered voltage regulators with stable output impedance and also unity gain that do have advantages over less sophisticated resistive circuit.
most of line sources especially CD players have enough output voltage to drive even low sencitivity amplifier to clipping but for the analogue setups even after phono preamplification or for the tape decks and tuners the sencitivity of amplifier might not suffice and positive gain might be neccessary.

Pasives sound great but can reduce the slam a bit depending on amp ,speakers .I perfer passive but I use SET amps and horns

keep the sony..passives have no souls