Serious Passive Preamp question

mrdecibel

Some months back I went passive, and found I was fortunate that my gear ( sources and amp ) were very passive capable. I had a tube pre and a ss pre, both of very high standards and recognized in the audio community for being excellent ( which I will not name ) ...

If you won't identify the equipment you've used, the value of your observations are greatly diminished. The reader has no context from which to evaluate your opinion. I've never understood those who post in a public forum, and then play "I've Got a Secret" with the details. What's the point?

While I suspect that in your system’s case an active pre is a better fit, the answer seems obvious to me: try it first! Why not swap for a few days and see what you think? VERY happy passive user here (high power tube monos, very high gain tube phono stage)

Love my passive...Checks all the right boxes :-) 

I'd never owned a passive preamp until the Schiit Freya came along...the passive option is interesting, but the tube stage has the gain my single ended amp needs. The output switching feature in this preamp seems most useful (to me anyway) as a way to see what the tubes are doing...

ozzy62
  If your system is passive friendly, an active preamp is only going to color the sound further.  Now if this coloration is pleasant to you, you are golden. But I am of the mind that you are fixing something upstream that you don't like.

+1 ozzy62
I don’t believe ANY active preamp can better a "properly used" passive for transparency, dynamics, uncoloured sound and extension in both the highs and lows. Unless you need to purposely colour the sound with the coloration's that all active preamps give.

Just read what  rob67  with friends and family said in a 4 way shootout in a very expensive hiend system, when comparing a passive pre to these three active preamps.
 
Audio Reasearch  Ref5se preamp
Pass Labs  X2.5  preamp 
Bryston BP20 preamp

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1623297

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1623299

Cheers George