A CD player with 10K output impedance!!! What brand is that? 10 OHMS is quite possible with SS electronics, and less than 50 is typical. Even old tube preamps ran 600 ohms.
Getting back to members on passive vs active lines
I found a buffered passive linestage for really cheap for experimentation. It is a Harman Kardon AP 2500 preamplifier with a passive linestage option (switch) made between '93-95' so minimalistic that it doesn't even have a balance control. Input impedence is 33k ohms;output impedence is 300ohms. I also have Rothwell attenuators in lieu of the Endlers which are again backordered--at the preamp's inputs and at the amp's inputs. It sounds really good, a lot better than the Celeste in the same set-up which I had figured out was being driven into distortion by the amp's low input impedence. The same with the CD player to preamp. The CD player's output impedence was too high and preamp's input impedence too low. So the system likes the H/K in passive mode better than it likes the active Celeste. And I'm not getting the anamolies at the low end of volume that I expected. The Rothwell's are dull as advertised, however. But Gregm was essentially correct in saying that a passive linestage won't work for me, because I don't have enough volume on the Telarc 1812. I have enough on all other CD's I've tried. When I get stepped attenuators, mybe I can decrease the attenuation enough so that I will have enough volume. But a CD player with 10K ohms impedence is a problem. Moral of story: match components within parameters before buying. Thanks to everyone for the info and help and for challenging me. I really needed to learn all this stuff. Comments welcome. Lynne