Best Passive Pre-amp with remote??

Give the Van den Hul array P-1 a listen. It looks simple and elegant. The sound is accurate, musical with no coloration, a great solid state passive preamp w/remote. For good tube preamp, Art Audio no-feedback preamps are excellent choices.

Reference Line preemminance I or II. Kinda clunky remote but great sonics $600-800 used.

..Heh! If you go to www.marchandelec.com you can get either assembled or all necessary quality parts to assemble a world class passive preamp but without remote that will be 5X cheaper than Placette(bellow $300).

possibly the best ever made

Give the Coda Technologies FET Control Buffer O4r a try, although it probably doesn't fit the definition of a "pure" passive. c-j, Rowland, and I believe Levinson, to name a few are using similar technology and circuit design to the 04r's for the signal attenuation. In my opinion it's the best sounding way to do it. Regardless, I couldn't be more satisfied. Most whom have great passive preamps have found that the resolution, transparency & speed are unrivaled. You're on the right path, so long as your front end is up to the task.
Do you remember that "Aunt Corey's Passive..." article that Greenberg wrote for Stereophile? Well, this preamp has way more than a little in common with that circuit. Ask Eddie at Coda about that. Here's the link: http://www.coda-continuum.com/product/index.html .