consensus on passive preamps?

I'll never go back to an active. I had a CAT SL-1 III with factory-simplified signal path (unneeded switches removed), and its lack of transparency, compared to a homemade Shallco ladder stepped attenuator passive, was intolerable. Others will tell you that passives can't provide dynamics or maybe things like "rich mid-range harmonics". These can only be artefacts, but if you want them, a passive won't be your cup of tea. You will need good output stages from whatever sources you use, but a lot of modern sources are fine on that score. People will also tell you that you can't use long interconnects with a passive and that imput impedance of your power amp must be high. True to some extent, but I've used my Shallco passive very successfully with Pass Aleph 3 power amps, input impedance 23K ohms, and with 8' interconnects (using paralleled Aleph 3's as monoblocks), and Nelson Pass told me, when I told him this, that many Aleph 3 users have given him similar reports.