Quote Originally Posted by a.wayne View Post
Full passive for smooth and easy Because dynamic and "real" is not your thing
I have no idea what you meant.

But... to continue with my story from few months ago: that transformer passive preamp (hand-made and home-made in Croatia) is now in my system, on a loan from its owner and maker, for indefinite time. I use it now for some 8 days - and my system sounds absolutely superior with it!

At many places around the web I've read that some people don't like passive preamps because the sound with them in system sounds like it "lacks dynamics". Well, with this one, I've got the opposite result!

Let's start from the beginning.
CD player is Simaudio MOON CD5.3 RS. Interconnect is temporary, cheap and not audiophile-grade quality. My active preamp is Burson Audio Conductor Virtuoso (it has built-in DAC, but I don't use Burson's DAC for signal from player, only for signal from computer which I don't use for listening music). From Burson there's another temporary interconnect (the Burson Audio's own interconnect) to Hitachi HMA-8500 MKII power amp. Kimber 8 PR speaker cables lead to Sonus faber Toy Towers.

I used the best remasters / CD editions of Marvin Hamlisch's "The Spy Who Loved Me" and Grace Jones' "Warm Leatherette" to test the difference between Burson Audio Conductor Virtuoso and the home-made transformer-based passive preamp. I also had a third preamp for testing which took several hours: Onkyo P-303 (active vintage).

Conclusion:
the sound is better - with both passive preamp and Onkyo P-303 - than with my Burson. Passive and Onkyo sound different, but much more similar to each other, than when compared to Burson. It took me less than 10 minutes to realise that with passive I get much MORE NATURAL sound. The maker of that passive preamp said that it's actually my CD player, which is really fantastic and his passive preamp finally allows MOON player to shine in full light, to show its character, just how great it sounds. With Burson, the sound is flat, lacks dynamics, seems artifical, somehow cold, digital, I would say... it's hard to describe the sound with words, so I'm trying my best. It's not such a bad sound per se, but it sounds like that when compared to a sound with passive preamp in a place of Burson. The bass with passive is DEEPER and FIRMER. In short - the bass is magnificent, everything you want bass to be. When passive is replaced with Burson again, the whole tonal range moves slightly upwards, if you understand me. I'm especially thrilled with how thin acoustic strings sound with passive preamp, much more LIVELY... also small bells, cymbals... never sounded better, passive gives an overall feel of NATURALNESS. The vibe is different, rich, inviting to listen more. To my surprise, very similar natural quality was with Onkyo active preamp, although different than with passive, but amazing nevertheless. However, to achieve the same loudness, Onkyo's volume knob has to be in 9 o'clock position and passive's knobs (it has one for every channel) have to be in 3 o'clock position. With weaker amps this passive wouldn't be a great option, I guess... but my current Hitachi is a 100-watt Mos Fet dual mono... so it's not a problem.