Is no preamp really better that a good preamp?

Knghifi,
Nice, very common sense observation. People will ultimately spent their money on what they believe sounds best to them.

I was curious if anyone has successfully used a passive preamp with a Pass Lab amp and then thought it sounded far superior to one of his active preamps.

But great minds do think alike when it was stated that people will buy whatever sounds good to them.

PHD, some Pass labs, First watt, Threshold ect, had very low input impedance <33kohm and low gain.

So yes they would be suited better with buffered passives or active preamps. Rather than just a passive attenuator.

The ones that have >33kohm (the standard being 47kohm or more) input impedance, and 1-2v input sensitivity for full output, would suit a passive attenuator.

Cheers George

The Pass pre's that had passive or gain free attributes (?) were single ended, it seemed as though the Pass Laboratories amps worked best via their balanced inputs.
I'm not sure, but I seem to recall that the Pass Laboratories pre's were not from Nelson Pass's pen.

Stereophile just posted a review of a GBP 9,000 ($13,619) passive preamp.