This is for Georgehifi especially but others can chime in.

Maybe you should call it cleaner. It is certainly more accurate because if the preamp does change the signal, by definition that is degradation.

The problem (as has been discussed a lot elsewhere) is that a passive control is highly susceptible to cable issues while an active system is far less so. In addition, the control often acts to reduce the efficacy of the output coupling capacitor of the source (if it has one). This can result in reduction of bass impact as you turn the control down.

An active system can be completely immune to the effects of the interconnect cable, allowing the result to be more neutral.

That depends a lot on the construction of the line stage of course. Being aware of this fact, we designed our balanced line stages to be quite impervious to the interconnect cable(s) they drive; for this reason we often advise the customer that an expensive cable is not always needed.

Audition is important!

Parasound JC-1s and felt it was a little leaner than with a preamp. Would this be the same thing?

Any active preamp will impart it’s own colouration on the source, and they all sound so different, that’s why so many chop and change these looking for the right colouration that suits them.

I say let the source be heard for what it is, without any added colourations with a transparent passive preamp, and if you then don’t like it change the source, as the source is where it all starts, and not to add another colouration with an active preamp trying to fix it.

Remember a very good 70’s saying from Ivor Tiefenbrun (Linn Sondek fame)
"First get the source right and your 1/3 of the way there, if you don’t it’s a never ending battle to get the truth"

Cheers George

If I repeatedly question what I consider to be ridiculous and/or overstated claims of sonic benefits derived from any mysterious source, that’s simply a consistently aware point of view. An agenda implies that I’m on some sort of campaign against tweaks and I’m not…if covering your gear with axel grease or making cables from uranium is your thing, well good for you. If you claim in 10 paragraphs it makes your hifi rig superior in every way to what it was before you boiled it or froze it, I might venture to ask why that is. If you take everything anybody says about the wonders of "special" fuses or graphene on everything, and not at least wonder why a designer decided this was a "thing," you may lack the ability called "critical thinking" in which case your intellectual diet is being spoon fed into your mellon.

georgehifi

... let the source be heard for what it is, without any added colourations with a transparent passive preamp ...

As noted by @atmasphere  above, passive preamps commonly suffer from their own problems that can easily affect the sound, and in a negative way. It is simply mistaken to believe that an ostensibly simple passive preamp is less colored than a more complex active preamplifier.

I guess ‘the absolute sound’ is not my only goal. I want the music to sound good to my ears. If ‘coloration’ does that then so be it.  These ‘auditions’ you speak of don’t exist. At these audio stores they follow you around like you’re going to steal something. After five minutes if you don’tsay that you’re going to buy the speakers they get frustrated with you. I have met a dealer that works out of his home that is much cooler about it though.