Passive preamp w/Rogue Medusa and Rega DAC

Definitely worth a try Sam for the money, compared to the cost of a good active preamp.
The sound you'll get with a passive pre in your setup will be honest to the source, the frequency and dynamic range of it will not be limited, and it will be uncoloured, with zero distortions, you may love it.
If not then the search begins to find what all the different actives preamps will bring to the sound, as they all sound different.

With a passive friendly system such as yours, and probably more than 75% of other owners, here is a quote from Nelson Pass who calls it like it is. (one of the true gods of audio).
Cheers George

Nelson Pass,
We’ve got lots of gain in our electronics. More gain than some of us need or want. At least 10 db more.
Think of it this way: If you are running your volume control down around 9 o’clock, you are actually throwing away signal level so that a subsequent gain stage can make it back up.
Routinely DIYers opt to make themselves a “passive preamp” - just an input selector and a volume control.
What could be better? Hardly any noise or distortion added by these simple passive parts. No feedback, no worrying about what type of capacitors – just musical perfection.
And yet there are guys out there who don’t care for the result. “It sucks the life out of the music”, is a commonly heard refrain (really - I’m being serious here!). Maybe they are reacting psychologically to the need to turn the volume control up compared to an active preamp.

..

To get the same transparency and gorgeous sound you could spend thousands on an expensive pre-amp or spend a few hundred for the Lightspeed. It all depends on how much you like to throw away your money. I personally like money and LOVE my Lightspeed.

If you need a remote, a Tortuga LDR passive is the way to go. I had one in my system for a couple weeks and I was very impressed.

Thanks for the great responses on this thread. I definitely want to try a passive. I have arranged to borrow a simple volume pot to put in my system to see if the gain is sufficient. If it is, then I will pursue a better one to try out.

I would love to try the Lightspeed but my listening room is in the family room so a remote is essential.

The concept of the passive makes so much sense. In my case, the preamp is not in the same class as the rest of the gear so the benefits could be substantial.

Sruffle, where are you located? You might get someone close by to hook up a lightspeed to your set up to see if you like it or not... Just a thought.

The remote control issue bothers me and can be a pain sometimes. At times, I set the volume and leave it. Other times I get volume ADD, and thank George for introducing some sort of physical activity into this hobby besides moving speakers an inch, daily.

I'm working on some sort of remote control device... Rubber band around the volume knob connected to a servo? There's got to be a way to make something remote controlled to move the volume knob.