I went down this road already for a while. I think there are probably ways to make passive preamps (or no preamp) work, but you really have to be willing to tweak your system and try lots of combinations out, and you have to have quality source and amp components that deal well with no pre. That being said, I could never make it work in my system, and the sound from my new active (Plinius 8200 mkII) is pure heaven compared to my experience with a passive setup.
Sometimes something seems like it should work but just doesn't.
Sometimes something seems like it should work but just doesn't.