Are passive preamps better?

Let us know your impressions. Interesting to see if you prefer the Endlers to your SIM; then there is tubes in the pre.....

It will be quieter and maybe more transparent, which does not mean it will sound better to you. You are going to hear 50% argue for passives and 50% swear by active tubes. Ultimately you will have to try four yourself, but there are certainly very, very good passives and happy owners. I know this does not help much, but it is hard to to give a definitive answer that is warranted. I've been the passive route, and prefer my tubed Joule 150 MKII.

Told you (see my first comment). But the comment made above - "music came alive" - pretty much describes why ultimately I preferred an active, even if it does not provide the same "see through quality" you get with passives. You will not find the answer from this thread, you will have to try good examples of both. I agree with the comment above that a budget passive is likely to sound better than a budget active.

I'm suprised that at least the with this group, it seems more like 80/20 for the active - not that it necessarily means anything, but it does seems to be some form of consensus amongst different listeners who have experience with both approaches; but eventually, you really have to try it to know if the passive works for you.

Interestingly, I had the Placette RVC and the "Active" which I owned between a CAT,Lamm, and now a Joule. The Placette's were excellent (we are hairsplitting between some very fine equipment), though I preferred the Placette "active"(it has no gain, but a buffer to ensure it can match with pretty much any load). Given that, I still ended with the Joule as it made the music more organic and more full bodied than the Placette approach (one of the finest IMHO); whether I prefer "distortion" or not I don't know, nor care, I'm more engaged with the music through the Joule. Maybe it is the difference between hearing into the recording and hearing into the performance - if that makes any sense.

I'm not sure if proper matching would really address what did not totally satisfy me with the passive, as the Placette Active has no mathcing issues (except possibly gain with some systems) and it was clearly better than the RVC in my system, not close in my view; it will satisfy many listeners. Experiment - but I do think the input impedance of most tube amps is proabably an important issue to good "matching".

Well said: "that depends on the tonal/sonic quality preferences of the listener". I also experienced that sense of amazement[?] when I first used passives, because they certainly are different, but ultimately I felt the need to go back to active, I suspect this is a very common trajectory. ok, 65%/35%.

FYI - the Placette "Active" (which is a zero gain pre with a buffer)has an output impedance of 10ohms or so and will "match" with any amp input impedance and, I'm told, almost any length cable. Of course, I think it is selling for $7000 now. Some may argue it is not a passive, but it has no gain stages which is a primary reason for the quiet and transparent quality of most passives.

I see there is one on sale for $2995, which is not a bad price. The price jump to $7000 was very recent and a very large ump from the previous $4995 price. So most used units were probably bought for much less than the current list -- that 2995 does not look to bad if the unit is in a good shape - they come with a 20 year warranty, so it is not like it is worn out, or wearing out.

1. The Placette attentuators (on both the RVC and Active) are arguably the finest ever made.

2. THe 40 kohm spec might (not sure about that) be true for the Placette RVC, not the "Active" - the active will drive (in terms of impedance matching) any amp you can find.

Tomryan, why do you use the RVC between the Joule and amp? What does that gain you? I use to use the RVC with a CAT pre, but that was becasue the volume gradations were so large on the CAT, I needed the RVC for accurate volume control. And I agree, the RVC did not alter the sound of the CAT as far as I could tell, but the CAT sounded way better than the RVC alone.

I would look for a used Audible Illusions 3A at the $1000 price point - 4-6 years old. But before you go the tube pre route, if you choose to, you need to find out what the input impedance of the HK amp is, to be sure that the tube pre will drive adequately, should not be a problem for most pres, but it will depend on that spec to some extent.

Dpac996, what SS do you find has the attributes of good tubes? I would love to stop worrying about biasing and tube replacement, but unfortunatley I can't find SS that does the job. My most recent stab was the Pass XA30.5 which is proabably the best sounding SS I've heard, but still not the sound of tubes (for good or bad).

I'm not saying this happened, but my experience with Pass Amps is that they tend to be less than ideal matches for most tube preamps because of their typically low input impedance. This would tend to lessen the output at the bass and treble regions, which is the same thing as saying that it might tend to push the midrange forward, which seems to be what you heard. You SB3 experience seems really interesting, that might be a good next experiment. The hard drive storage "transport" idea is starting to intrigue me. I bet you like the LS26, alot.

Low input impedance with high output impedance from the pramplifier reduces the output in the base and trebles, they roll off. As a result the mids seem to be pushed forward since the balance of the sound is altered from top to bottom. Typically, as a rule of thumb, the input impedance should be at least 10x the output impedance. With the AI3, I think you would need at least a 20kohm input impedance for balanced sound across the spectrum.

Maybe $200.

I hear you Aleko. What is interesting about the theory is that so many folks who have tried passives at some point go back to actives, mostly tubed. I like them both passive (rsistor and tranformer based)and tube actives, but as Guy Hummel of Placette once said to me, and I'm paraphrasing, a thousand theories as to what should sound good aren't worth one good listen.