Passive Pre - No Regrets?

Tbg, the nice thing about the Placette marketing model, is you can try it in your home for 30-days and determine how it compares with what you have. So they make it easy to answer the question for your self, directly, in your system, for your taste. I won't say something silly like it smoked the ARC,Lamm, or CAT, but I prefer its sound to theirs (they are all excellent units). Personal taste rules, but the Placette should be on the audtion list, not just with comparably priced units, but with anything out there, IMHO.

Has anyone tried the Musical Fidelity Tube Buffer to address the impedence matching problems? Does this make any sense?

Kensetsu, I think that does make sense. Do you have specs on the unit? Output impedance?

Sure I've pasted it below:

Input impedance 470K Ohms
Output impedance < 33 Ohms
Total harmonic distortion < 0.004% 10Hz to 20kHz
Frequency response 20Hz to 65kHz +0, - 0.5dB
Crosstalk Better than 80dB, 20Hz to 20kHz
Signal / noise ratio
(reference full output) Better than 93dB unweighted
Better than 106dB 'A'-weighted
Valve (tube) type 6112 twin triode (two)
Power requirement 12 - 0 - 12 Volts AC 500mA
(via mains adaptor supplied)

Or you could check out this link: http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/smlx/x10v3.html#

I've been very reluctant to consider any component change as being "better" until I have played many hours of music that I am very familiar with through the new addition and then back into the older gear. Sometimes it takes months to realize that "different" isn't better, just different. Invariably, it's better in some areas, worse in others and generally just different.

After many years of playing around with stuff, I now have to do all the comparisons like I always do, but I finally settle in and just let the stuff wash over me for several weeks without listening critically.

It's kinda like true love...if you have to work too hard to make it work, it ain't right. That's why I like Audiogon so much. Try to get a dealer to loan out gear for more than a couple of days when often times it takes a couple of months to come to terms with new stuff.

Factory direct with 30 day returns is the high end business model of the future.