I found that while a passive preamp did indeed provide the last n'th degree of detail, it did sometimes sound a little anemic with some source components. It sounded great with my tube phono stage, good with my cd player, and anemic with my tuner and tape deck.
If you just have one or two higher end source components that can drive a passive, go passive, otherwise an active is a more general solution. I noticed my new (used!) $4000 pass labs active-only preamp actually outperformed my old $1250 adcom while running in passive mode. Barely though! And that was while running with pass amps too! I don't think all passives are created equal - some have higher quality parts which affects the signal.
Check out the adcom gfp-750 - it has both active and passive modes. I think it's the best buy out there in used audio. Being able to just flip a front panel switch to go active/passive was a great feature. Plus you can resell it pretty easily.
If you just have one or two higher end source components that can drive a passive, go passive, otherwise an active is a more general solution. I noticed my new (used!) $4000 pass labs active-only preamp actually outperformed my old $1250 adcom while running in passive mode. Barely though! And that was while running with pass amps too! I don't think all passives are created equal - some have higher quality parts which affects the signal.
Check out the adcom gfp-750 - it has both active and passive modes. I think it's the best buy out there in used audio. Being able to just flip a front panel switch to go active/passive was a great feature. Plus you can resell it pretty easily.