2. amps-preamps
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Who is using passive preamps and why?

Seldom has there been any discussions on passive preamps in the forums and although my experience with them has been limited I have found them so far to be very enjoyable and refreshingly different. They seem to fall into their own category, somewhere between solid state and tube. Finding a preamp that is satisfing has been difficult. Some active solid state preamps can be very good but they seem to inject grain to some degree in the upper registers and some tube preamps are not too far behind. So far I think they should at least be matched up with an amp that has sufficient gain which is often overlooked. Which passives are you using and with what amp? Why do you like them?
phd

Showing 1 response by paulfolbrecht

paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
People that appear to have drawn conclusions about passives without considering the critical issues - the impedances & voltages involved - haven't drawn meaningful conclusions.

A well-known member here could not find any active better than his Placette Passive until he got to the $18,000 DarTZeel. I believe he tried a great many. I think at the time he had the Placette most or all other components in his system were 10-20x as expensive as it.
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