Are there passive attenuators that don't zero volume and only offer one input ?

I personally never liked TVC units myself.

I agree, TVC passives are usually colored, softened in dynamics, also in the frequency extremes. I would say they might appeal to those that like laid back SET tube amps.

BTW: before anyone sez anything "snidely"
I’m NOT trying to sell the OP a Lightspeed Attenuator (I’m sure he can find a used one somewhere) As all my production has stopped, till this Covid mess sorts itself out, so OS shipping is back to being reliable, as the last one took 3mts to get to the customer.

Cheers George

That coloring/softening is why I didn’t care for the sound of the Acoustic Imagery JaySho (which is basically a Bent).  That sound can be a subtle effect but it is there.  I have 3 resistor passives here now, Goldpoint, Endler, and the Khozmo that I like best.  Takman REY shunts and Vishay "nude" Z-foil series resistors in the Khozmo.  The Endler sounds a little coarse or unrefined, the Goldpoint with SMD resistors is clean but maybe a touch thin, and the Khozmo doesn’t have much of its own sound at all.  It is definitely more neutral than the Shallco volume control using AN Tantalum resistors that I took out of the signal path of my preamp - which is now a buffer.  The Khozmo was very reasonably priced considering the features and the sound quality.

The op wants a passive pre with one input, that doesn’t go to zero, all the ones mentioned above do zero the volume.
As far as I know only the Lightspeed at minimum volume still has a small amount of output, as Light Dependent Resistors (ldr) can’t attain absolute zero impedance.

Quite the opposite actually. Referring to my first post, it can be seen not being able to zero volume, or have more than one input, is not desirableat all.

Both are serious compromises, that designs must overcome.

If you want to use LDR's , as I observe in other designs, they find it easy to both achieve silence at zero volume, and to also have as many inputs, as are required.  

If you want to use LDR's , as I observe in other designs, they find it easy to both achieve silence at zero volume, and to also have as many inputs, as are required.  

True but it's not as pure a signal path. I have owned my LDR passive (Lightspeed) for over 10 years. I have also built/owned other resistor and transformer based passives. The simplicity of the Lightspeed and the ability for it to stay out of the way more so than the other passives is why it is the one that stays in my system.