Placette Passive Pre

I listened to the Placette passive in a HT setup using A EAD pre/pro, Theater master 200 5chx200, Sony9000 SACD/CD/DVD, Aerial 8s, CC3, SR3s, Earthquake sub, Harmonic pro 9 spk Cable and ICs. The little passive was used to bypass the pre/pro for 2ch without the sub. All i can say is i'm getting one myself. Its an excellent passive very clean and transparent. It makes me rethink my own setup using a Classé ssp50 pre/pro, ca300 amp and Aerial 10Ts. Excellent piece. Highly recommended in a compatiable setup.

I've tried the Placette Passive and Active and both sounded terrific. Significant increment over my already excellent Audible Illusions M3a, except that the M3a has a bit more body in the sound. Placette is clean, transparent, musical without harshness at all. I bought the $1400 3 way remote box since I did not seem to need the additional handiwork of the active one. Spendor FL9 speakers, Conrad Johnson Premier 12 amps, Cary 303 cdp, Basis 2001, van den hull frog, rega rb300 modified, sonic frontiers phono one. Caution: You will hear how your amplifier really sounds with this preamp, so be prepared. Also if the power in your system is marginal for your speakers you may find that you need a serious active gain stage other than Placette.

Ditto ... all of the above. I have the Active Line Stage and it is the best preamp I've heard, where you are not trying to "warm things up" (i.e. tubes) There is simply no distortion on the high end, whih makes for wonderfully transparent SACD and XRCD. The downside is that the rest of your system must be up to the task --if you got a harsh or dark front end, the Placette will certainly not let you forget that you need to upgrade. The Active also has a headphone amp that is true class A, and is far better than the Grado headphone amp I had.

Another thing to consider is that Placette spends almost 50% of the selling price on materials -- this is unheard of in this business. If it were a mass manufactured preamp, using standard markups and distributor + dealer margin, I estimate it would cost far North of $10K. Now whether or not it is superior preamps over $10K I can't say, but I think it's clearly the best value under $10K.

With respect to the Active vs. the Passive, I find the active to be slightly better in presence. This is perhaps a function of its more flexible impeadance matching. --Lorne

I agree too. The active Placette does the preamp job with out any significant coloration (just a touch of added sparkle). The passive version is lovely, and fantastic at the price, but I find passives (even the Placette) still don't quite make it. I simply do not concur with the popular wisdom of warming things up with a tube preamp - look elsewhere and remove the problem - adding countervailing distortions is just wrong, wrong, wrong (in my humble opinion of course - I can see the negative votes now).

Has anyone compared the Placette (passive) to the FT Audio passive preamp which retails for approx. $500? The feedback that I keep seeing on the FT Audio product is that it maintains output at the frequency extremes (mainly the bass).