Is my preamp useless?

Onhwy61,
Granted only Nelson Pass can fully explain his chosen product pathway decisions, not us. Do you really think he believes a passive is the best sonic solution and just builds actives for their popularity? Possible, but not probable IMO. Again if you personally feel passive/direct is better, no problem with that as it's your call. My own encounters say otherwise, that's just me. Choice is wonderful.

All I can say to this is, in the OP's case, how can $10k worth of electronics in the signal path with way too much gain + another set of interconnects, sound better that no preamp and interconnect at all.
As his PSA can drive perfectly 100% the Cary mono's direct?

By reducing his source gain so much, and then to bring it back up again with the preamp so his has control over the volume, all he is doing is amplifying the noise floor as well.

It's ALWAYS best to get the full level signal from the source, not to attenuate it then only to bring it back up again further down stream.

Cheers George

"03-22-15: Onhwy61
It's not really accurate to draw a conclusion about whether Nelson Pass thinks active preamps are the best solution for most systems just because the company with his name offers that type of product. At one point point Pass Labs offered an active loudspeaker, but now they only offer passive loudspeakers. Does that mean he really thinks passive designs are superior, or is it a reflection of marketplace realties? I don't know and only Mr. Pass and his cohorts can truly respond. Integrity can be expressed by making a high quality product that people want to buy. If you look at the vast number of products Mr. Pass has been associated with it's apparent that he is very flexible at doing that."

I think you're exactly right on that. You need to take each system and person on a case by case basis. In the end, everyone's system is probably going to be different. For me personally, I think a passive can be a great low cost solution for high end sound. But as you start going up in quality, I feel you get to a point where actives start to sound better. Obviously, not everyone would agree with me. And that's a good thing. No progress would be made is we all wanted the exact same thing. If we never had the experience of audio equipment we didn't like, we wouldn't own the same equipment we have today. The stuff we do like. The negative is what drives us to the positive.

"03-22-15: Georgelofi

All I can say to this is, in the OP's case, how can $10k worth of electronics in the signal path with way too much gain + another set of interconnects, sound better that no preamp and interconnect at all. "

Al I can say about the OP, is that it looks like he's the smartest one here. Something tells me he ran from this thread like a burning building.

Let him run then, if he did.
If he asked "Is my preamp useless"
Well yes then in his case, as he has to turn down his PSA source (risking bit stripping) so he has then some usable volume range on his BAT pre, even it then is in the negative of it's volume range.
So you can see, he's doing exactly what Nelson Pass is against, attenuating the source only to bring it back up again, (NOISE AND ALL) with the active preamp, and in his case the BAT is still in the negative of it's amplification. So it's no win on either component.

Cheers George