Best Passive Pre-amp with remote??

...either it has to be motor powered attenuator or it has to be electronic attenuator. Either way it's not going to be "pure passive" preamp...

..Heh! If you go to www.marchandelec.com you can get either assembled or all necessary quality parts to assemble a world class passive preamp but without remote that will be 5X cheaper than Placette(bellow $300).

What does passive preamp mean -- do not do anything to the sound -- make it only quiet!
If the voltage is high enough to feed power amplifier than we're good with only one stage of amplification. So it comes to true that if we're buying Placette or any passive preamp, we pay the bucks for(well said by Mikec)not doing anything with the signal!
I do respect and honor Placette, I love it's sound, but my mentality isn't allow me to spend money for what I can do myself.