Are passive preamps better?

I had an NVA passive pre which....delivered music "as is". When I tried an Audio Note tube pre, the music became alive. So I am now an active pre camper!

Just to represent the other 50%

I like my Sonic Euphoria passive a lot. The last active I had created a lot of glare which is now gone. The active before that did not provide enough gain. The one before that sounded flat. (Supratek, Joule, BAT - not top of the line but not exactly chopped liver)

No doubt that the rig sounds different with the passive then straight from source to amp. A bit darker and smoother. Maybe more emphasis on certain details. But NO glare.

For now I am happy - lots of detail. sounds great at low levels, no tube rolling ang$t. I am sure I will go active again but for now this is working for me.

I am a happy owner of passive pre-amp based on S&B trainnies. It has 0 and 6dB of gain, which is switchable.

The sound is very transparent without loss of dynamics. I compared it with several pre-amps (for example with EAR 864) and it was clear winner.

Saying all that, I wouldn't though say that every passive is better than every active pre-amp. It depends a lot on your music taste, the rest of equipment, ... So the best way is to try several options, active and passive, in your system and then to make a decision. There are a lot of extremly well sounding active pre-amps (and not only tube but also SS) on the market.

The most important factor when considering a passive is to look at the impedance match between your source and your amplifier. A passive simply muddles things up - unless your impedance match has a lot of leeway built in, a passive simply will not work.

I have never heard a passive setup which impressed me. Quite often, the system would run out of volume when more is needed. This is especially true for classical music which is mastered at a relatively low volume.

I am using a Preeminance 1A passive ahead of Atma-sphere M-60 II.3 with the best results in my system to my ears thus far. The actives I have used (Cary, Sonic Frontiers, BottleHead, Musical Fidelity) imparted a color to the sound peculiar to each preamp that I only noticed due to the tranparency of the passive.

I would equate it to prefering water to drink over soda. Water is quenching and ulimately satisfying where as soda is great at first but leaves you with a thirst and an after taste that may not be pleasant.