Who is using passive preamps and why?

$450 shipped from Australia; it takes two weeks or so before shipping. I get the feeling the Stereophile review is making him busy. It will be interesting to compare with the Goldpoint and then I'll sell one or the other. Either way, these passives are a really "inexpensive" way into some pretty darn good sound. I don't know if I will like them better than my Joule or Atma-sphere preamp, it just may be different, but worth having in the mix.

I think you will like it. Definitely makes you think about what it takes these days to get high quality sound. As an example, the combined cost of my Lightspeed and RM-10 MkII is $1450. That's a lot of sound per dollar in my opinion.

Anthony, if the Lightspeed is as good as it seems, I think it and the RM10 would put ALOT of $10-20K pre/amp combos to shame - IF 35 watts is enouuh power. Looking at the diminutive RM10 (size of a hardcover book) reminds me of that old Steinway piano ad about how they laughed as the fella sat at the piano, till he started to play. Can't wait to give the Lightspeed a try, but the Goldpoint ain't chopped liver either.

What frequencies can "meat on the bone" be found? And are those flesh tones in the source signal, or added later? Or are active tube stages just keeping something from being lost that simply gets sucked up by essentially straight wire connection. Maybe we have a long addiction to distortion, and what it is gone something just seems to be missing.

I remember a conversation I had with Kevin Carter when he was building me a TVC, my first passive. I had made some comment to the effect that passives have the reputation of leaning out the sound. It took him less than a second or two (meaning he didn't even have to think about it) to reply that its active preamps that add something to the sound.

I'm leaning towards the opinion these days that a lot is in the engineering and mixing and that active preamps are more like tone controls. I was hanging out with some audio engineers this past weekend and one guy liked having his speakers against the wall to improve the bass response. I commented that to me that would hinder depth of sound stage and that is why I prefer having my speakers out in the room. His comment was that much of the depth in the sound stage comes from how the recording was done, not where the speakers are placed. I'm not sure I buy that one yet, but considering the number of fine speakers out there that are corner/wall placed, maybe there is something to it.

I agree with the argument that its the lack of distortion that creates the notion that something is missing in the sound. A tube amp should provide all the distortion one needs.