Passive Pre - No Regrets?

Pubul57, I went from a Mark Levinson reference 32 preamp to the Placette dual active line stage because it offered a much higher level of sonic performance. A good friend and fellow audiophile loved the Placette active, but it was not in his budget, so he auditioned the Placette passive and fell in love with it. We both believe the Placette passive gives about 70% to 80% of the Placette active line stage. He uses his Placette passive with a Threshold amp and MG 1.6's in his system.

I believe both Placette pieces are great performers and very reasonable priced, $4600.00 for the active and $1500.00 for the passive, and Guy Hammel, Mr. Placette is a great gentleman to deal with. Finally, you can do a 30 day home audition to see if his preamps are what you are looking for based on personnal taste and system synergy.

Pubul57, I have in my system the Placette dual active line stage that replaced a Mark Levinson reference 32, that cost $10000.00 more then the Placette! However, it's performance was head and shoulders better then the ML-32.

The Placette was among six preamps, three were SS and three were tubed, that I auditioned before chosing the Placette for my system. It's a great preamp and I believe a bargain for $4500.00. If Guy sold his preamp through retail salons I believe the cost would be around $7500.00 to $8500.00 with the overall markup ratio.

Another Gon member finally found what he considered a better sounding preamp, the darTZell, which sells for almost $20000.00! That's quite a compliment considering the price difference.

A final thought, I believe that the active line stage is about 20% to 30% better in its sonic performance compared with the passive. You also might want to go back to the review that was in the Absolute Sound, that gave the Placette a "golden ear award", I believe it describes the sound of this preamp with great accuracy.

Pubul57, the tube preamps were the reference Lamm, Hovland HP-100 and Audio Research's reference before the Ref 3.

What you might find interesting is that I was discussing preamps with a dealer who is a tube "maven" about what would be worth auditioning in his opinion. When I asked him what preamp he uses in his home system, he laughed and said the Placette active line stage! He believed that it offered the best performance, even if it was not a tube based linestage. He also shared that all of his clients that auditioned the Placette kept it and traded in their tube preamps.