What active preamp...

...it's actually more on colouration and bringing the sound away from reality rather than being simply bright that is not neccesarily.
with short interconnect runs and sencitive poweramps you can get away with cheap passive pre-amplification that will be compatible with expencive active preamps.

Bob, it's adcom gfp750 that is great in passive mode and also has a unity gain, but first i'm not sure how far it brings music from real in active mode... The length of wires adds too much resistance for a 600mV...1V signal.
despite having a sencitive power amplifiers I still need a positive gain. I can also try to buffer thorugh Musical Fidelity tube buffer that might reduce the wire impedance influence...?
I'm also tended to consider Room Lenses and if it will bring me the stage that I have now I will forget about going active ever.

I know McCormacks are good bang for a buck but they're all extra-bright in active mode

I used T2 for the STAX SRM1 headphone driver that I believe less affected by the wire quality. In general I believe that T2 has a great built quality and great plugs but anywhay I use it temporarily to check how it works. I'll definitely brew for myself some VanDenHul Type1(depends on my decision) since I always basically refer to these interconnects. The other alternative that I have is to get longer speaker wire at least for one monoblock. The ones I use VanDenHul CV125 are the best ones that I know for the money. I paid for unterminated pair of 6ft runs $75 and changed them over JPS labs Superconductor!