Passive preamp w/Rogue Medusa and Rega DAC

Definitely worth a try Sam for the money, compared to the cost of a good active preamp.
The sound you'll get with a passive pre in your setup will be honest to the source, the frequency and dynamic range of it will not be limited, and it will be uncoloured, with zero distortions, you may love it.
If not then the search begins to find what all the different actives preamps will bring to the sound, as they all sound different.

With a passive friendly system such as yours, and probably more than 75% of other owners, here is a quote from Nelson Pass who calls it like it is. (one of the true gods of audio).
Cheers George

Nelson Pass,
We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.
Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

..

05-30-14: Sruffle
In the meantime, I will be borrowing a passive to determine if using one is even feasible in my system. Thanks for all the comments. This has been a great thread!

Definitely worth a try with your system, to hear it at it's most transparent, dynamic and extended from top to bottom.
Just make sure the one you try has a 10kohm or 20kohm logarithmic (A taper) pot inside it.
And that your interconnects are <100pf (picofarad) per foot capacitance, which quality ones usually are.

Cheers George

I've always thought that that only way of going one better than using a passive pre from dac/cdp to the poweramps is by going direct if the dac/cdp has a digital domain VC, and so long as it's used no less than 75% of full as I've stated in above posts.

Here is a statement fronm the designer of the TotalDac one of the best digital front ends you can get.
"Volume control:
I have made many different volume controls, including high end pots, relays, Shallco + stepper motor, LDR... The best sound was with the digital volume control made inside the FPGA of the DAC d1, made with a 69bit resolution. It was the only way not to "listen" to the volume control components. This digital volume control allows not to have cables and connectors in the signal path."

http://www.totaldac.com/principles.htm

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/05/30/high-end-2014-totaldac/

Cheers George

I've had a few customers who have taken it on themselves to add their own remote volume controls to their Lightspeed Attenuators, like these aftermarket ones.

[url]http://www.ebay.com/sch/Consumer-Electronics-/293/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Remote+volume+control[/url]

[url]http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALPS-Remote-Motor-Volume-Potentiometer-Control-Adjustment-4CH-50KA-/331214708402?pt=US_Amplifier_Parts_Components&hash=item4d1def5eb2[/url]

They can be coarse in their action. And the remote buttons don't last.
I cannot afford to use them as for me they're just not reliable enough especially the hand sets.
With the Lightspeed being very reliable as it is, and at the low shipped price it is, I don't need or can afford to have returns coming back because of these after market remotes, from companies that look like their here today gone tomorrow, then spare parts become a problem as well.

The only companies that make good quality ones are the big boys Sony, Yamaha, Panasonic, ect and you cannot get these quality ones for the small manufaturers like me.

Cheers George

His Rega dac get some good raps, even over the Benchmark, in some of the a/b's done.

But you are right Labtec going direct with a dac or cdp that has a digital domain VC is the only way to better the transparency of good a passive pre.

You just have to watch that digital domain VC's are used in the top 75% of their full output, otherwise you can run the risk of "bit stripping". EG: 16bit resolution down to 14bit then 12bit and so on the lower you go with them, if he has very efficient speakers he may not even be able to get to 75% let alone over it, before it becomes too loud for him.

This is when a good passive attenuator is the next best in transparency, as the remote controled digital domain VC of the dac/cdp can be full up then with no risk of "bit stripping", and the volume then set by passive pre attenuation.
And then you can still use the remote volume of cdp/dac within it's top 25% so you can adjust it from your listening chair.

Cheers George

Thank you for saying so Marqmike, I refrained from saying so, otherwise I would have had the wrath of the anti passive preamp brigade coming down on me, yet again!

Cheers George

You have great system parameters for a passive.

Your cdp at 2v has double what it takes to clip your amp at 1v.
It's output impedance will be fine into a 10k or 20 k logarithmic passive, if going the way of a potentiometer I would use something like the Dact [url]http://www.dact.com/html/attenuators.html[/url]
The input impedance of your amp at 200k is very passive friendly and your speakers are fine with mid range efficiency.

All in all you couldn't ask for much better, and you will hear your source in the cleanest, most dynamic and uncoloured possible way.

Cheers George