What is a passive preamp?

Cripes, Herman, EVERYTHING is before the amps. Except the speakers :-)

Herman, you are wrong. A real preamp contains a phono stage. Look at Audio Research for example. None of their linestages are called a preamps unless there is a phono stage.

From the Audio Research Data Base:
pre·am·pli·fi·er (prmpl-fr)

Preamplifier is the name applied to the first amplifier in the audio chain, accepting inputs from low output sources such as CD players, tape recorders, turntables, etc. The preamplifier increases the input signals from tape-level, for instance, to line-level.

line stage (ln stj)

A line stage is a preamplifier without a phono section.

C'mon, guys, this is silly . . . terminological snobbery does not endear people to our hobby. I'm personally happy with the term "passive preamp", but it's not because of any ignorance of what's going on inside the box. It's for the same reason that I don't correct somebody if, for example, I ask for a Kleenex and somebody hands me a box of Puffs.

The term "preamp" in audio, for at least 50 years, has most often meant "the thing with selector knobs and a volume control that goes between sources and power amplifiers". So thusly, a "passive preamp" is most commonly understood to be one of these things, that performs its functions with passive components only . . . the big indicator being that it has no power cable or batteries. They are for "line-level" (IHF 250mV) sources only, and generally work best in systems that have high gain power amps and/or sensitive speakers.

A "preamp" does not require a phono stage to keep its name . . . this has been true for many years. Remember that tape-playback preamps at one point migrated from the "preamp" to the tape deck? Yet nobody demands that we call a Revox A77 an "integrated deck-preamp" or whatever. Likewise, if somebody owns a "passive preamp", and they want to play records . . . they must ask for a "phono preamp" or a "phono stage" if they want the proper thing. Simply asking for a "preamp" will most likely not do.

I think that even those who scoff at the term still know exactly what one is . . .

Rwwear, if you look at their website they lump all of them in the category preamplifiers and all have preamplifier in their name.. Even if they did describe them as you say, which they don't, just because AR calls them one thing does not make it so. Calling a pig a horse does not make it a horse.

http://www.audioresearch.com/products.html

Dopogue, saying "pre means it comes before" doesn't mean it describes everything that comes before. If I say something is in the pre civil war era it is understood that is the time leading up to the war, not everything that ever happened before; AND it is not the war that came before the civil war as some here would have you believe.

Kirkus is correct. It is a silly argument. It is well understood what it means. It is the box that goes between the source(s) and the power amp. It can be as simple as some jacks for in/out and a volume control and you can add what you want from there; input selector, active buffers, active gain stages, tone controls, phono stage, balance control, loudness function, etc.

Yep, no football 'til September and the boys are restless.

8^(