First off, I just want to say thanks to everyone who contributes to these fora, it has been extremely helpful as part of the learning process and really makes Decware special.

I did a search for "passive preamp" and didn't come up with much, but it seems like there must be some people using them (only passing (passive!) references to STL, Khozmo, Icon 4, and Lightspeed). I am in the unfortunate position of having my preamp completely meltdown and wanting something that can be put in place while I wait for my slot on the amp build (likely 3 years).

I have heard good thinks about the Lightspeed Attenuator and the various Khozmos, and they seem like good options for now, and potentially for keeps. I also have a ZROCK3 coming relatively soon and thought that might work, or maybe sub it out for a ZSTAGE (or maybe use both?).

From what I can tell the Lightspeed will work with my phono stage and SE84UFO and at a pretty modest price, that is what I am leaning towards. Not sure how it might integrate with a ZROCK.  

I do vinyl exclusively and the phono and amp are tubes, so I like the idea of having something passive that can cut out any coloration from another device, plus it take the bottomless expense of tube rolling out of the question.

Thanks for your time.

Your STL preamp melted down? Dang, that is certainly a bummer.

I guess for you the big question is does your phono stage have enough gain that you don't need any more from the pre?

For me personally what you call, quite rightly, "coloration from another device, plus the bottomless expense of tube rolling" is a little bit of secret sauce that I've always wanted in my system. I can't imagine life without a tube preamp, but of course that is JMO/FWIW/YMMV and all that.

JHC, as a semi-happy Decware 300B owner, I think that your consideration of the SE84UFO25 monoblocs makes a lot of sense. My amp's hum continues to improve, thank goodness. I am now searching for a used pair of 93 dB speakers that I think can remove more of the hum's edge. I'm hopeful that in the long run this will work out for me, but it has been challenging.

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I run a pair of 25th Anniversary modified SE84C+ Zen amps as monoblocks with a CSP2+ and a ZRock2.  I can tell you that I when I play vinyl with my ZP3 as the phonostage, I really enjoy the ZRock2 in the signal chain.  There are a bunch of albums I own that are just flat..so it allows me adjust the ZRock2 to compensate for its recording with the added gain as a benefit.  

With the ZRock3…they removed the bypass switch.  For me….I find it useful to see how good or bad a vinyl recording is by using the bypass switch.  

Lon is 100% correct….the ZRock3 is all the way around a better unit than the ZRock2 when you compare them side by side.  If I was in the OP shoes…I would not hesitate to buy the ZRock3.  

Lon… if I came across as putting down  the ZRock3..that was not my intention.

I guess I will step in and take the contrarian side of this discussion.

It has never made sense to have a preamp on a amplifier that didn't need it.
The idea of adding more boxes and interconnects to my system always seemed counterproductive.
It just sounds to me that you are inviting more things to go wrong. I thought that the Zen way was to make things as simple as it could be.

But I will make the concession that I am a single source person, I've always used just a turntable, or a CD player or an DAC to feed my amp, and I've never had more than one of them at a time.

More stuff, more complexity, equals more chances for bad stuff to happen. At least in my experience.

I honestly used to share that "Keep it Simple, Stupid" philosophy . . . but with the introduction of ZBIT and ZROCK2 by Steve and their implementation in my system made me totally reverse my position. The improvement these devices make really undeniably outweigh any detriments (if any) of more cables, connections etc.

And. . . I firmly believe and have experience to back up my belief that a great preamp (and Decware only sells those) has a big benefit compared to just having a potentiometer in front of an amp.

So I guess we all hear things differently, but I've actually lived with both "philosophies" and the use of preamps and Steve's "black boxes" have totally convinced me that more gain stages and control of gain from more than one component is beneficial.

I will be interested in hearing your opinion of the ZROCK3. I think that any untreated room would benefit, and with different adjustments treated rooms would as well (but I have never been able to have a treated room, don't have direct experience there).

In a way I have a passive preamp in place in the Goldpoint switch box with attenuator--which I got instead of a ZBIT2, a cheaper solution since I already had a set of additional matching interconnects to use.

https://www.goldpt.com/sa2x.html

It allows me to have XLR inputs from phono preamp and DAC selected into the ZBIT. It is very transparent and really "not there". . . and also another attenuation stage to play with (though for DAC use I have it full up and I diminish the output a bit for vinyl playback depending on the LP cut). My experience with this prompts me to recommend Goldpoint as a passive preamp to consider.

Multiple folks here use Passive Preamps—often listed in their signatures. I use one and love it.

Cheers,

Kamran