I've actually gone from a tube pre to a passive. I used to own an Octave Audio Phonomodule. At the time, i thought it sounded good. That was until my mate brought his Dave Slagle autoformer TVC over. The difference was day and night. Soon after i built my own and have never looked back. I will never go active again.
But as they say, it's all system dependant.
But as they say, it's all system dependant.