I completely agree that some components demand that you use an active preamp and such systems are capable of superb performance, but I think perhaps you missed my main point. The main point of my post was that it is not the passive volume control causing the problem some experience, it is trying to use it with the wrong components.
Let me try again. ALL systems consists of some source of an electrical signal, usually a DAC chip or a phono cartridge these days, followed by a series of active devices that eventually amplify the voltage to a level sufficient to drive the speaker. At some point in this chain of amplifiers you must include a passive volume control. To keep it simple let's concentrate on a system that only plays CDs.
The most common way to do this in a high end system is to have some amplification inside the source which amplifies the DAC chip output up to around 2V. That feeds an active preamp which may or may not amplify the voltage but contains at least a passive volume control and a buffer. That is followed by an amp that further amplifies the voltage and can supply enough current to drive the speaker. There is nothing magical about putting the volume control where it is. It could be in the CD player, it could be at the input to the amp, or if the output of the CD player is robust enough and the amp input is benign enough so the buffer isn't needed it could be put in a separate box between the CD player and the amp which we call a passive. My point is if you blame wimpy sound on a passive it means you don't understand what I stated above.
How about this? I don't have a preamp of any kind. I'm using Pure Vinyl software which controls the volume in the digital domain using 64 bit math. I modified the source so the DAC chips are connected directly to the input triode tubes of my amp through a 1:1 transformer followed by 2 more triodes. In case you are interested they also just release a version called Pure Music which doesn't include the vinyl functions.
Check it out http://www.channld.com/pure-music1.html
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Let me try again. ALL systems consists of some source of an electrical signal, usually a DAC chip or a phono cartridge these days, followed by a series of active devices that eventually amplify the voltage to a level sufficient to drive the speaker. At some point in this chain of amplifiers you must include a passive volume control. To keep it simple let's concentrate on a system that only plays CDs.
The most common way to do this in a high end system is to have some amplification inside the source which amplifies the DAC chip output up to around 2V. That feeds an active preamp which may or may not amplify the voltage but contains at least a passive volume control and a buffer. That is followed by an amp that further amplifies the voltage and can supply enough current to drive the speaker. There is nothing magical about putting the volume control where it is. It could be in the CD player, it could be at the input to the amp, or if the output of the CD player is robust enough and the amp input is benign enough so the buffer isn't needed it could be put in a separate box between the CD player and the amp which we call a passive. My point is if you blame wimpy sound on a passive it means you don't understand what I stated above.
How about this? I don't have a preamp of any kind. I'm using Pure Vinyl software which controls the volume in the digital domain using 64 bit math. I modified the source so the DAC chips are connected directly to the input triode tubes of my amp through a 1:1 transformer followed by 2 more triodes. In case you are interested they also just release a version called Pure Music which doesn't include the vinyl functions.
Check it out http://www.channld.com/pure-music1.html
.