If your system is passive friendly (and you can search here to see what that means) a passive line stage is your best bet. There is no need to throw away gain when it’s not needed, I’ve had some very good active preamps up to around 8k and all of them were shown the door by one or another passive device. If you truly need gain, then disregard the aforementioned and buy the best active preamp your budget will allow.
Passive preamp
Hello. I wanted to learn more about running a preamp in passive mode versus active mode. Am I correct in thinking that passive mode means it is not altering the audio signal? My question relates to a Schiit Frida s that I am using in passive mode, using it essentially as a switching device. Am I missing anything?.