Best Line Stage Preamp?

I am curious and I'm not looking for confrontation here. As I've never listened to a passive pre and althought I hear from others is that the transparency is usually quite good, the dynamics are most always weak at best.

In fact, as I recall, I believe Guy Hammel, owner of Placette, claims that the majority of his active linestage customers are current/previous owners of his passive pre's.

I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about the macro-dynamics associated with these passive pre's.

Especially when one claims it's all about the music.

-IMO

Get thee to a McIntosh dealer and listen to a C-15 or similar. Pretty awesome and rock solid--, the last one you will ever have to buy. buy a McIntosh switched power outlet and you are ready to go.

I am using a highly modified Bottlehead Foreplay with my KR Antares and I have no complaints. Just for a comparison, I have ordered a Luminous Audio Axiom passive preamp. It is quite inexpennsive ($125) and is supposed to be a very good passive but it only has one set of inputs/outputs. I will most my comments on the two preamps in a few weeks.

I know I'm not "an other" but here goes - I have a small (11 x 13.5 x 8.5) room although it's plaster with a cove ceiling and heavily braced floor. I get tremendous dynamics from the Placette and have tried it against 4-5 high rated expensive to very expensive pre-amps. I actually get less dynamic expression from the actives. One thing that always tips me to this is that I keep turning the music up during listening sessions. I don't do this with the Placette passive. I still get startled on a regular basis with this system. However, not many CDs are produced with wide dynamic swings, but many classical recordings literally hit me with shock waves.

We were at a small restaurant last weekend and heard a Spanish styled guitarist with female a singer. He also startled me a few times, the singer did not. She had a pretty flat delivery.

Again, I've tried everything from a Krell & Classe to C-J and BAT, still like the presentation of the passive. Oddly enough, I thought the Krell had the worst dynamic ability - I kept increasing volume until the room shook which at that point the music was gone. My room does that at extremely loud levels.

Excellent idea, though. Let's hear from more people and hopefully those who are not trapped by the glitter of high priced gear.

The Placette Active is actually a "no gain" preamp.
The two output amplifiers only lower the output impedance to a very low level to improve accuracy of the signal transfer.