Passive Pre - No Regrets?

Active preamps I have owned:

Modulus 3A
JJ Electronics 243
Cary V-12P(hot rodded SLP-98)
Bruce Moore Companion
BAT VK3i
BAT VK-30
Reference Line Preeminence 1

I would say my current TVC based preamp using S&B Mark I trannies beats 'em all. And BTW, I borrowed a Placette for a night, not even close.

Oz

I moved from a Cary to a Reference Line 1A. An improvement in naturalness and soundstaging. Best single improvement since upgrading to a Meridian 508.24 CDP.

Associated equipment:
Atma-sphere M60 2.3 amps
Silverline Sonata MKI

OK, one regret-every once in a while I cannot get "concert level volume" because of the CD recording level.

I went to a Bent Audio TAP TVC based passive and to my ears its the best move I have made. I went from tube preamps Vac, Canary Audio, First Sound to name a few and active SS preamps, Klyne, Pass, Superphon to name a few to my Dac straight into my amps and the Bent Taps sonics surpassed them all. No looking back.

Pubul57, I went from a Mark Levinson reference 32 preamp to the Placette dual active line stage because it offered a much higher level of sonic performance. A good friend and fellow audiophile loved the Placette active, but it was not in his budget, so he auditioned the Placette passive and fell in love with it. We both believe the Placette passive gives about 70% to 80% of the Placette active line stage. He uses his Placette passive with a Threshold amp and MG 1.6's in his system.

I believe both Placette pieces are great performers and very reasonable priced, $4600.00 for the active and $1500.00 for the passive, and Guy Hammel, Mr. Placette is a great gentleman to deal with. Finally, you can do a 30 day home audition to see if his preamps are what you are looking for based on personnal taste and system synergy.

I was using a Joule Electra LA-100MkIII before moving to a passive TVC. THe TVC was built for me by Kevin Carter at K&K Audio using S&B TX-102 MkI transformers and Seiden switches. It is configured with dual volume and dual input selectors. It has 2 inputs and 2 outputs.

The Joule is a very musical and outstanding preamp. However, the passive TVC just matched up better with my high input sensitive solid state amp. I gained more accuracy, detail, and overall tonal balance with the K&K, at the expense of some mid range sweetmess and the musicality the Joule offered (which for a tube preamp is pretty neutral IMO). I don't regret the move, but I do miss the Joule.

I have never listened to the Placette, but have heard the Sonic Euphoria as that was on my list. The K&K is better IMO and has character (there is a liveliness to the presentation), which I think the Sonic Euphoria lacks (somewhat boring presentation, but accurate). I did listen to some resistor-based passives and prefer the TVC implementation. Again, more of a preference as I heard quite a few nice resistor-based passives. To me the TVC is easier to match up with amps and you don't necessarily have to worry about cable lengths.