consensus on passive preamps?

Tim,
I like them both, but held off on a more critical audition and decision on which to keep until I received some room treatment from auralex, which I put in today. Sometime in the next week a friend and I will be doing an extended listening to the BC21 versus the Placette, and I will post a note here regarding our thoughts.

C.

Thanks C. I'm currently considering a Placette pre and very much look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Tim

Has anyone listened to the MSB multiple volume control? It looks like an interesting product, highly configurable, remote volume, and cost is seems reasonable at $800. Thanks for any input.

I have gone from passive to active for practical reasons. When my child was born in seemed prudent to move as much equipment away from curious fingers as possible. Longer interconnects were required and the demands for a sucessful passive system were no longer possible. In acitive mode I get a bit more bass impact and dynamics. In passive mode a bit more purity of sound. These effects are pretty subtle. One curious thing I discovered was that my purely passive device sounded better than my active device with gain stage removed (via a switch) and used passively. Now this all went on some time ago. Hence for reasons of lack of funds and extreme caution re: expendenture on a new hobby (read cheap)I wasn't using the best equipment. One of the best amplification rigs I've heard was the "First Sound" with a passive line stage and a dual mono class A amp. The key to making passive work is to do your home work, the requirements are fairly strict. Whether passive is better, I don't know. I would consider acive first, but wouldn't rule out passive. Interestingly enough, some of the origianl manufacturers of passive line stages went onto unity gain devices. I have not tried them. Perhaps this is the best compromise? The future of digital amplification may make all of this moot.

Simply put, all else being equal, ANY active sytem CANNOT be as TRANSPARENT as passive. If your source output impedence is low, as it should be, speakers sensitivity and amp input senstivity not too low, and listening volume not abusive, your home free. In my experience, these factors rarely add up to a problem but can. Having done alot of experimentation, parts quality makes a big difference. If you're not afraid of a soldering iron, constructing your own is not prohibitive and , of course, puts you in a position of upping parts quality for less money. Stepped ladder attenuators using even low cost 1/8th watt resistors(smaller is better) will blow away the best pot. A few hundred $ in parts and a few hours will blow away ANY "preamp" including the CJ ART; unless you're after additives and colorations, in which case there's no argueing and personal taste rules as always. Why waste money?