The Best Preamp is no Preamp?

I'm not a big fan of the "no preamp" school of thought. But I have had all manner of active and passive preamps come through my room and I am convinced that a well thought out system will benefit from some type of very good passive device. I've had autoformer, transformer,  and  conventional resistor based preamps but my favorite is something like the Tortuga Audio using light dependent resistors. This is about as close as you can get to no preamp, but solves the issues with component impedance mismatches.

The take away is when you have sensitive, easy to drive speakers, enough source gain, and components that play well together, a good passive preamp is hard to beat.

The best preamp is no preamp only until you hear high quality active preamp

@sns 

While I don't disagree that active preamps can be very good, I think if a high quality passive doesn't beat it, your system is what's at fault. I have owned many "higher end" active preamps from CJ, ARC, deHavilland, Art Audio, Lamm, Audible Illusions, Cary, BAT, and the list goes on. But a TVC or LDR beat every one of them.

@daledeee1 A lot depends on what type of passive you are using. All are not created equal.

Edit:

I just looked at your system. You are doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't at least listen to a couple of good tube amps on those speakers. I owned them in the past so I know of what I speak.

Yeah I missed that too.

If anyone reading this thread has a Lumin streamer in their system and has not tried the LEEDH volume control in the software, you should do so now. Your expensive preamp will find it's way on to Audiogon pretty quickly.