Who needs a Preamp??

I do both... A tubed DAC w/ VC straight to amp OR either ss or tube DAC to DHT pre. But when it really counts to hear a new live release for the first time, it’s DAC to amp for sure...and that’s with owning a $15k pre—lol. 

almarg
Generally speaking, IMO the burden of proof should always be on adding anything to the signal path that is not an obvious necessity.

This one sentence of almarg’s above and quote from Nelson Pass below, is what going direct or using a passive is all about, so long as they are impedance correct.

A quote from Nelson Pass:

"We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.

Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.

Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.

What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.

And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp."

One step better than this, is going direct, if the source has a volume control. If you don’t like the sound this way, then you don’t like the sound of your source.

aberyclark
So who makes a passive preamp with balanced ins and outs, two outputs that are active at same time, multiple inputs for various components?

Schiit Freya +, it’s all you ask for, has remote one of the best volume controls you can get, and it’s passive, tube active or solid state active all three switchable on the fly.
https://www.schiit.com/products/freya-1

Cheers George

I suppose if I had to floor the accelerator to drive 55 mph, maybe I’d think the life was being sucked out of my driving. Then again, maybe I like 55. Nice and safe, good gas mileage…

Is impedance matching an issue? Passive volume controls do have to make a trade-off between input impedance and output impedance. If the input impedance is high, making the input to the volume control easy for the source to drive, then the output impedance is also high, possibly creating difficulty with the input impedance of the power amplifier. And vice versa: If your amplifier prefers low source impedance, then your signal source might have to look at low impedance in the volume control.

Immediately following the text George quoted above from Nelson Pass is the text above.

I think the most you can expect from a preamp is that it mitigates some limitation in the connected equipment and in all other ways is transparent.
Most of the time a preamp is there for the convenience of switching and having a single control to adjust the volume.
As @atmasphere pointed out an active preamp might act as a buffer and present better impedances than if the components were connected directly to one another. And I agree with @almarg in that a very good attenuator in a preamp allows you to leave all source equipment volume controls at max which will improve the sound.
If your equipment is well matched with top quality attenuators and you don't need the convenience then I don't think you'll get much out of a preamp.

Luminous Audio makes one.....