Of course you understand that any signal coming out of your cd player has to be attenuated, whether it be passive, active or digital. The quality of the attenuation is the key.
I use a Placette, because like yourself I like the remote volume control. I like passive preamps because I believe that the less you do to the music signal they better; less is more. Active preamps seem to give the music a "processed" sound (some give the music more life and dynamics than it actually has), the good ones do this much less. This is not always a bad thing, so I keep a tube preamp when I want this effect for certain types of music. The problem with really good active preamps is that they are more expensive than a really good passive preamps or simple resistor controls that you can stick on the back of your amp, as the above post suggests.
I cannot comment on the Accuphase above, but digital attenuation is accomplished by removing information in the signal. So, as the music gets quieter there is less information. If you go this route definitely listen before you buy.
The cd players that you may want to look at with really good built in analog attenuation are: Levinson 39 (might actually have active attenuation), Resolution Audio 50 and 55.