Anthony, I agree. There are many reasons to own a full-featured, robust active preamp and yes, even the "audio jewelry" aspect is as legitimate as any other reason for prefering a piece of gear.
What I am missing is the "active" argument solely on the basis of sound in a system with appropriate gain and impedance matches. There was some conversation earlier on about "true to the source", and by that I don't mean true to the live event being recorded, but true to everything in the signal coming out of the source (e.g. CD player output) - at least once removed from the live event - but anyway all the rest of the system has to play with. It seems to me that if anything is different, in any way, from the direct connection, it is an artifact and not true to the source. I won't argue that some, many may prefer the sound of those artifacts, and they are perfectly right to choose according to their ears and preferences, what I don't think can be argue logically is that any active preamp, no matter how expensive, can be as "true to the source" as the Lightspeed Attenuator (assuming proper gain and impedance matches). There may a difference in preferance based on accurate versus pleasant, and we are all free to choose the camp that makes most sense to us, and that choice can't really be argued with. I would though argue that a neutral preamp can be mixed with the widest range of sources and amps, which are then left to present their own sonic signatures.
What I am missing is the "active" argument solely on the basis of sound in a system with appropriate gain and impedance matches. There was some conversation earlier on about "true to the source", and by that I don't mean true to the live event being recorded, but true to everything in the signal coming out of the source (e.g. CD player output) - at least once removed from the live event - but anyway all the rest of the system has to play with. It seems to me that if anything is different, in any way, from the direct connection, it is an artifact and not true to the source. I won't argue that some, many may prefer the sound of those artifacts, and they are perfectly right to choose according to their ears and preferences, what I don't think can be argue logically is that any active preamp, no matter how expensive, can be as "true to the source" as the Lightspeed Attenuator (assuming proper gain and impedance matches). There may a difference in preferance based on accurate versus pleasant, and we are all free to choose the camp that makes most sense to us, and that choice can't really be argued with. I would though argue that a neutral preamp can be mixed with the widest range of sources and amps, which are then left to present their own sonic signatures.