Who is using passive preamps and why?

Rrog, there are quite a few people who chimed in here whose experience and opinions I trust. As with Pubul57, I can say for a fact the man has tried a number of different components and if he prefers active preamps so be it. I myself have tried a Cary SLP-98, Joule Electra LA-100MkIII, TRL Pre-1.5, Jeff Rowland Capri, all of which I have owned, and have auditioned a number of others including a very fine Herron preamp. I prefer the passives and that was whether I was using my 88db Spendor 1/2e speakers, 92db Audiokinesis Jazz Modules, or 95db Tonian Labs DL-1 speakers.

I think we've probably beat this subject into the ground. So I'll thank Phd for starting this thread, and people like Herman, Pubul57, Tvad, Almarg, and the others who offered constructive advice and opinions for contributing.

Herman, maybe you can answer this, under what circumstances would you expect a resistor based passive to perform better than an AVC or TVC. I know they address some issues of impedance matching, but they also add alot of "stuff" between the source and amp. What is your opinion. Roger Modjeski tried explaining it to me (he prefers resistors and no buffering) but I could not understand him after two minutes into his explanation.

From a measurement standpoint resistors should beat transformers, but an awful lot of people claim they like the sound of the transformers better. My opinion is either one can sound very, very good if properly implemented and this is one of those issues where it comes down to personal preferences.

I tried a Placette in a system before I was biamping and it sucked the life out of it. I talked them into building me one that had an input impedance of 100K instead the stock 9K and it sounded wonderful. I compared it to some Slagle transformer units and to tell the truth couldn't say say which I really preferred, leaning a bit to the transformers but they were both very good. Now that I biamp I don't use a preamp as I control the volume via digital processing in Pure Vinyl software.

I know, not much help but at this point I think you need to try both and see which you prefer.

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It did help. I ordered a 50 kohm resistor passive from Goldpoint. I do think that 9kohm (I did have a Placette too)wa a bit problematic, but I was not A/Bing with a TVC at the time. But I did have the Placette Active (buffer, no gain)and it was signifncantly better in the bass - but that might simply have been an issue with the 9kohm Zin. Well, I'll have it to listen to soon enough. Thanks.

I am using a DIY ALPS 10k passive to feed an Audio Research VT50 and a Powered Sub. The IC's to both amps are low capacitance. This has resulted in a very spacious lifelike and tonally neutral sound with all the dynamics I need.