Passive preamp

op

this may help you learn about the topic 

My worry is that your system is good as your weakest link.  Which might be the schiit.  I'm using a Starkrimson Ultra class D amp (which I just added), and Dynaudio Heritage Specials as well as Innous Zen mk3 and Bricasti M3 DAC. I was hoping that a 'budget' preamp might work in passive mode.  But I'm having second thoughts now.

Passive preamps can sound amazing, but it takes much more care in component matching. You can in essence relying on the output of your source (in my case, my DAC) to drive the amp (in my case Coincident Frankstein 300b). If the input sensitivity of the amp is high enough and the output of your source is high enough, then a passive preamp can sound absolutely glorious (keep in mind that you need to select cables very carefully as well and avoid any longer lengths). Get it wrong and it's going to sound flat and uninspiring.

On the other hand, a really good active preamp will remove most, if not all, of these constrictions and can very well make your entire system sound better.

Run your M3 directly into your amp and use its preamp which is awesome btw and may beat the schiit out of your freya s.

let us know!

depends on how many sources one wants to use in the system -- in the old days we needed phono stages, and then also listened to cd players, tape decks or radio tuners, which have line level outputs, so a switching preamp was a necessity

today things can be very different as a single digital streamer front end (dac output) allows a user to choose from many sources like internet radio, cd transport, tidal and so on

the truism is always that best pre is no pre, passive or active

an active pre aids the sound if there is a mismatch between the source output and the amp input, that is, the source output is too weak or has too narrow a range to drive the amp to desired volume levels

i had a bricasti m1 with remote volume control... the bricasti m1/m3 have robust, great sounding analog output stages -- if that is the sole source, i would say it is best to go without a linestage at all