Who needs a Preamp??

Passive or Active I believe that the volume control is the componet 
that one should be evaluating .
I have noticed that many passive pre tend to use stepped resistor VC
and many active pre tend to use either Alps or Burr Brown electronic stepped VC . 

I have experienced an Active pre with an Alps VC 
and that same pre with a stepped resistor VC , Stepped won !

I am currently using a Goldpoint passive pre  .

I would love to use DAC-amp directly and save on the preamp, XLR and power cables, and save some rack space and free an outlet. But truth is that in my system adding a preamp (Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE stage 2) made a lot better sound than going direct. Specially on dynamics.

made a lot better sound than going direct. Specially on dynamics.

That is the sound of a typical "impedance mismatch" when this is said with direct or passive or even active preamp .

Audiophiles need to understand this "impedance matching" (>1:10 ratio) a lot more.
Then there will be a lot less experimenting and expensive mistakes done if they do.
If not they’re just p*****g into the wind changing things without any idea of what’s needed.

Just like a "impedance mismatch" can be had with "nearly" all tube preamps into a power amp with less than <10-20kohm input impedance.

It’s called "impedance matching"
And it goes right down the chain from source to speakers.
1: Source direct to poweramp,
2: Source to preamp,
3: Preamp to poweramp,
4: And yes even poweramp to speaker load impedance (this ones called damping factor)

Cheers George

The whole issue can be nicely summed up with a, “it depends”.  

Of course I might be accused of being lazy with that response, but it depends.