Passive & Tubed pre-amps to power amp at same time?

I'm sure someone here can give you a better technical explanation, buy I wouldn't do it. With everything powered up at once, the both sources would interact with each other. You need to keep them separate. A better solution would be to get a passive that accepts 2 or more inputs, and use that to switch between the CD player and pre amp. The downside would be that the passive will be in the signal path of the preamp, and you'll have to set the volume on the passive whenever you need to use your preamp. You would have to do some experimenting to see what setting works best.

If you use your CD player with your preamp, why not try lowering the volume on the CD payer. That should give you more range when using the preamps volume control.

"Atmasphere - Good one. That would allow me to do what Zd suggested 6 posts above yours. He was thinking my CDP had a volume control (at least, that's how I read it). Re passives' sensitivity to ICs, I assume this would be to ICs on the output side of the pre-amp?"

Sorry. I wasn't mistaken, just confused. I was commenting on a few different threads about digital sources with volume controls. The brands were Esoteric and Wadia. And since they both use Teac transports, I somehow allowed my fingers to get the best of me.

The IC's and the passive would be on the input side of the preamp, not the output. Depending on how much room you have on your shelf, you may be able to get away 1 pair of IC's and 1 pair of jumpers. You'll only need to set the volume on the passive once. After that, you'll just use the one on your preamp. Just put the passive behind the CD player close enough to use jumpers. Also, if you don't have really deep shelves that extend too far behind the components, you can probably get away with a 1/2 meter IC. That will keep the lengths down to a minimum, as well as cost.