Passive Pre - No Regrets?

I had a McCormack passive into my DNA .5 amp and loved it, but was missing the dynamics. I've moved to an Audio Prism Mantissa and haven't looked back.

Yes, a passive is very alluring, and can be really great paired with the correct equipment, but it doesn't always work everywhere. However, trying to keep that level of detail and transparency and clarity is VERY hard to find in an active linestage. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

Enjoy,
Bob

Pubul57,

I too use CAT amps (JL-1s), and had used them with active preamps such as the Thor TA-2000, the BAT VK-5i, and the CAT SL-1 Signature. (I also own Merlin VSM-Ms, so I am pretty familiar with your equipment). I switched to passives maybe four or 5 years ago, starting with the Audio Synthesis Passion (a great little passive line stage), to the Placette, and ultimately to the Audio Consulting Silver Rock TVC. Like the posters before me, I was extremely pleased with the switch, and also highly recommend you give a passive line stage a shot in your system. Indeed, no active preamp has provided the level of transparency or resolution that I have gotten with the Silver Rock.

I would pose two caveats, however. First, make sure that you try a passive line stage with dual outputs (i.e., one for the CAT JL-2, and one for the BAM) - I was not as pleased with the result when using an RCA adapter after the passive to split the output into two lines. Second, I was not as impressed with the Placette passive in my system as other passives that I tried (however, given that others have had more success with the Placette, take this caveat with a grain of salt).

I had a transformer based passive for a while, (Bent Audio TVC)..."extreamly good sound" untill I made many system changes, ie...amp, speakers, and new (much larger) room. This caused my move back to an active preamp a couple of years ago.

I'm now using a tubed preamp (Audioprism Mantissa)...like Bob above, I'm "more" than happy with the Mantissa preamp I now have in place of the passive.

So, in answer to your "regrets" question...I had no regrets going passive...and no regrets (now), after going back to active

Dave

I have had 4 passive preamps and many active ones, the passive line goes from First Sound to Axiom, I am currently using a Monolithic Passive in the meantime I receive my new preamp (active again).

Passive preamps (as noted above from others) are very transparent, fast and revealing units, only top-end preamps (Metaxas, ML or Gryphon) come close in those regards, unfortunatly for me my new systems need of the work of an active preamp to bring more roundness, dynamics and soundstaging (yes - sonic artifcats at the end).

Good luck

Fernando