If you're inclined to use a passive preamp with Aleph 3/5, let me say that I've used a 10K ohm passive with Aleph 3, despite only 23K ohms input impedance for the Pass amp, and it worked beautifully. Nelson Pass confirmed that others have said the same. Better still: a CD player with a good output stage straight into an Aleph 3/5. Aleph 5 does have balanced input, Aleph 3 doesn't. While the Adcom in passive mode may be quite good, it's easy to have a better purely passive preamp, if only through better hardware and less switches in the signal path. There's a Go preamp for sale on Audiogon right now, unless it's sold, which sounds like the best commercial unit I've heard of: it has Shallco stepped attenuators and the steps are 1 db, which is rare.
