The best active pre's can be better than passive. The placette passive is one of the best yet owners of the placette active who have also had the passive in their systems report it to be a little better. The difference could only be subtle unless the source/amp/speaker was bad match for passive. I have a Bent audio transformer volume control which is as good as the placette in my system. These two passive unit's are around $1200. I have read that the silver rock passive is one of the best but cost is much more. The thing I like about passive units is the hash they remove from the midrange that most active pre's (tube and SS) put there. For a person building a system, who has not yet bought his source/amp/speakers or the person who already has, but is lucky enough to have good match for passive it can be a very good thing indeed.
