i agree with all the previous comments regarding passive's advantages and the system issues required for passive to perform properly. for passive to work correctly in your system you do need sufficiently high input impedence amps, short interconnects from the passive to the amps, sources with adaquate output voltage, and speakers that are efficient enough to have enough gain with your passive. this is an oversimplification of the issues but it gives you an idea of what is involved.
to me the biggest advantage of passive is that it gets out of the way of the musical message.....and especially for your budget of $2k.....will outperform by a very wide margin any active gain stage in that price range. in my system it has outperformed ALL active gain stages regardless of price.
my top choice among passives is the Placette RVC or Line Stage......depending on whether you need input switching.
sometimes an active gain stage pre can 'fix' things in your system by adding ease, weight or body. if it sounds better then it is better.
good luck with your decision.
to me the biggest advantage of passive is that it gets out of the way of the musical message.....and especially for your budget of $2k.....will outperform by a very wide margin any active gain stage in that price range. in my system it has outperformed ALL active gain stages regardless of price.
my top choice among passives is the Placette RVC or Line Stage......depending on whether you need input switching.
sometimes an active gain stage pre can 'fix' things in your system by adding ease, weight or body. if it sounds better then it is better.
good luck with your decision.