Passive Pre - No Regrets?

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.

I had a McCormack passive into my DNA .5 amp and loved it, but was missing the dynamics. I've moved to an Audio Prism Mantissa and haven't looked back.

Yes, a passive is very alluring, and can be really great paired with the correct equipment, but it doesn't always work everywhere. However, trying to keep that level of detail and transparency and clarity is VERY hard to find in an active linestage. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

Enjoy,
Bob

Pubul57,

I too use CAT amps (JL-1s), and had used them with active preamps such as the Thor TA-2000, the BAT VK-5i, and the CAT SL-1 Signature. (I also own Merlin VSM-Ms, so I am pretty familiar with your equipment). I switched to passives maybe four or 5 years ago, starting with the Audio Synthesis Passion (a great little passive line stage), to the Placette, and ultimately to the Audio Consulting Silver Rock TVC. Like the posters before me, I was extremely pleased with the switch, and also highly recommend you give a passive line stage a shot in your system. Indeed, no active preamp has provided the level of transparency or resolution that I have gotten with the Silver Rock.

I would pose two caveats, however. First, make sure that you try a passive line stage with dual outputs (i.e., one for the CAT JL-2, and one for the BAM) - I was not as pleased with the result when using an RCA adapter after the passive to split the output into two lines. Second, I was not as impressed with the Placette passive in my system as other passives that I tried (however, given that others have had more success with the Placette, take this caveat with a grain of salt).

I know you don't want to hear it, but I have tried five passive units over the last ten years. In each case, I gave up and went back to active units to get back the pace and dynamics of music.

I grant that there is a purity to passive units, but I cannot take them for very long.