Buffer amp no gain

It may not be up to the standard of the rest of your system, but that’s pretty much what a Schiit Saga does. Unity gain if you turn the stepped attenuator all the way up. There’s a solid state and tube model.

Hattor has a nice looking tube buffer meant to be used with their passive preamps. It might have some fixed gain though. I’m not sure if that can be defeated, bypassed or altered as an option.

i spent some time trying to find a preamp with little to no gain, even started a thread on it here, but eventually broadened my search. While I didn’t need any gain, getting a little hasn’t seemed to hurt anything.

Contact Bob latino, I'm pretty sure he can build you one. If it's really just an itch, amazon has cheapish tube buffers in their chifi electronics section. 

@cat_doorman

Hattor has a nice looking tube buffer meant to be used with their passive preamps. It might have some fixed gain though. I’m not sure if that can be defeated, bypassed or altered as an option.

I own one of those and they sound very nice. The default is 9dB gain, which really isn’t that much but Arek can build them to your specification. We compromised and mine has 6dB gain.

I spent some time trying to find a preamp with little to no gain, even started a thread on it here, but eventually broadened my search. While I didn’t need any gain, getting a little hasn’t seemed to hurt anything.

If you want a great sounding preamp with no gain, the SMc Audio VRE-1 C comes with 6dB gain through the transformers. However, I believe Steve can build it with unity gain as he did with my modified TLC-1, which I use as a unity gain buffer along with the Hattor passive, which provides volume control and other convenient functionality.

+1 on the Schiit Saga with tube buffer, especially for inexpensive systems. It sounds better than it has any right to at the price! 
 

My Cary SLP-05 is more organic sounding, but for the price difference, it should!

What DAC and what is the output impedance?

What volume control and what is its resistance and attenuation type?

What amp and what is its input impedance?

Balanced or unbalanced?

What interconnects?

There is nothing that is ’transparent’. You are adding connectors and cables, along with circuitry, all of which color the sound.

I ran [self-designed] passives for years, both in the studio and at home. I only went with active control when I tri-amped.