Poll - Active vs. Passive preamp

Herman,

That's certainly one view. But an active is providing impedance matching and buffering while a "passive" is not. Of course the VC itself is "passive"; I have a rather difficult time imagining anything else, don't you?

The "excess gain" argument has been stated ad naseaum. These days, nobody needs the gain of an active linestage - almost nobody certainly - yet they sound better in some systems, even when there would be plenty of gain without another gain stage.

Active. Tube. Battery powered. Dodd's latest.

Herman has given some feedback to think about.But think Ozzy make a reasonable argument for it being combination specific set-up that's needed. for the amount of "purity" in passive mode with good unit has't' been worth the trade off in lack of bass and dynamics.And this was born out with a same unit ($1250 Pass designed Adcom in my case).Not sure why the knock on resistor based passives since I though this is means use in a hand trimmed Vishay resistors in Placette which many regard well.Haven't experience with TVC.Others like Sonic Euphoria may use different means to same passive end but they all seem to lack drive of a good active unit.For my (cheap) money I have been thinking of looking for units which have active outputs and volume controls eve if cheap op amps in CD players and some phono's.My problem is it restricts number of units with ability that attenuate signal and would prefer those that don't thus I use an active pre.But if anybody can recommend a passive units which will work with a Aesthetix Rhea or Plinus M14 (two phono's I'd like to get) I am all ears.Just don't want to have to restrict list of cables and amp to use them with.
Chazz

I've built at least 15 passives of various kinds since giving up on a CAT SL-1 Signature with its truly horrible volume control, resistors on a rotary switch but not "true ladder", and recently built a TVC based on Stevens & Billington TX-102 transformers, a la Bent Audio. I thought I'd never improve on that, and maybe I still haven't, but I'm writing this to sing the praises of Vishay resistors, TX2352's from Texas Components, looking more "naked" than the Vishays I'd seen before. To save money, I did a shunt type, which I'd always rejected, but I realized that at fairly high attenuation levels, even -14 db, say, the "size" of the passive, Input to Output plus Output to Ground, changes little, and I certainly heard nothing bad. What I did hear was really good, and whether it beats the TVC in my system will take me a long time to decide, if indeed there's any clear verdict. Expensive with Vishays, but still miles below the cost of the S & B transformers. Anyone want details? Email me if you like.

Paul, that's not a "view," that's the way it works. You restated my point (albeit more succinctly) about buffering and all controls being passive so we evidently agree.

So why is a resistor volume control in your supratek "killer" and you dismiss them if they are in a separate box? The reason is that the designer optimized the drive and load on it. If you would do the same with a "passive" preamp you would get the same or better results.

Granted, most audiophiles don’t have the technical background or expertise to do this on their own and they therefore often get miserable results. It’s like trying to drive 85dB speakers with a 2 watt amplifier and declaring SET amps are no good. Like Amfibius they blame the passive preamp when it is actually the implementation.