Passive Stage preamp vs Active Stage Preamp

As you all probably know lots of integrated amp designs (solid state) exersise the passive preamp part design which are basicly either transformer or a high quality potentiometer and simple input circuitry.
Many of us know that most of the CD players have a sufficient enough output voltage to feed the power amp (from 1V upto 3V) Same thing with DACs. Analogue phonos are able to produce the same kind of outputs.
The input sensitivity of power amp <=500mV
For somehow I've been experimenting with loaned WADIA No 15 DAC with variable output that has just a passive potentiometer and connected a variable output directly to my Bryston 3b-st. The result was deeper soundstage and details vs. setup through Bryston 11b preamp. The only drawback was that the volume range is much smaller than with preamp.
Can anyone summarize all advantages and disadvantages in using passive preamps vs. active?
Does it make a sence to try a passive stage preamp in my current solid state setup which is Theta Data II -> EAD DSP700 ->...
and analogue J.A. Michell GyroDec -> Delphini phono ->...
and ending with Bryston 3b-st?
Also if such exists, describe an importance of using active stage in tube setup.(Impedance matching?)