Passive preamp vs. powered

Read this:

S&B

Count me as a passive fan. I have a few different types lying around - AVC, resistive, opto-coupler - and listen to them regularly. Sold my last active preamp and not intending to go back.

Ralph made a good point about eliminating the cable by placing the passive volume control in the amp. You might look into EVS attenuators which plug into the amp inputs and accept a cable from your source on the back end. This is a nice solution if you only have one source to deal with.

Love to do a shootout. What passive do you suggest that is transformer based?

In response to both yours and Shakey's comments I will say this. I have had an S&B MkI TVC and loved it (replaced a Joule Electra LA-100 MkIII and Cary SLP-98). However, I have to say the autoformers offered by Dave Slagle that are now used in the new Bent Tap-x are superior. I purchased a minimalist version of the Bent using Dave and John's new Slaglemam modules. It's not pretty, but sounds great and replaced a Jeff Rowland Capri in my system.

I used to also think that the transformer models were superior to the resistive models. After hearing a Lightspeed Attenuator in my system that uses opto-couplers with a resistor I'm not of that opinion any longer. Since I own both types direct comparisons were easy.

While everyone talks about impedance matching, etc. with passives, and that is important, let's not forget the role the actual attenuator switch plays. Using quality attenuator switches (Seiden, Shallco come to mind) is important in passive designs and influences the sound IMO. However, the Lightspeed attenuator is the only design I have run across that renders the attenuator switch irrelevant.

Bill - if you're interested in checking out an autoformer let me know. I might be able to let you borrow mine for a bit. Email me offline if interested.

Paul, we have gone down similar paths with passives and in the end our preferences have led us to different end points that we mutually respect. It helps that you and I have spent some time understanding each others systems and have listened to different systems together at a previous RMAF. I can certainly see understand why tube actives are your (and others) preference, although both your systems are passive friendly.

There have been times I've been tempted to try a VAC preamp to mate with my VAC amps. However, as I kept listening to my passive preamps, the thought just faded as I realized how pleased I was with the sound I already had.

Good points Phaelon.