How much do I need to spend to get a preamp that sounds better than no preamp?

Saying that everyone that sells active preamps is just in it for the money and somehow that someone selling passives isn’t is as hypocritical as it gets.

Yes I was drawing a long bow there, yes there is a place for active preamps when, poweramps have stupid low input impedance, and if their input sensitivity is higher than 2v, eg FW F5. This is when active preamps are needed.

I’ve heard the Lightspeed and it works fine in the right circumstances.

I’m glad, and the right circumstances can be 90% of the time, if amps input is more than >33kohm and input sensitivity is less than <2v.

I’ve got nothing bad to say about Nelson- he is a brilliant designer and I often point out in my posts that he makes some of the best solid state gear out there.

"I’ve got nothing bad to say about Nelson"

And no you shouldn’t, nor should anyone else here who want to question what he’s said, if they want to then go to http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pass-labs/ site and try to tell him there direct and see how long you last, as those technically superior like NP wouldn’t waist their time here with the BS that’s put forth on these forums .

Lay off the crap.

Ditto back at ya sunshine.

Cheers George

@georgehifi 
Just an FYI.... Any F5 can be made to yeild 25 dB of gain very easily. In fact, most who build the F5T do configure it for more gain. Mine is sort of a mix between the F5 and F5T V1. The F5T V1 schematic actually specifies the 22 dB gain configuration. It's a topology that can be scaled up to 500 watts given a big enough pile of MOSFETs and heatsink. People can and have done that so getting gain from an F5 isn't an issue. 

There are a few sources that require active preamp, without while your system sounds lifeless. I had Logitech Bluetooth receiver which was one such example. Similarly connecting the headphones out from a mp3 player to a passive also sounds lifeless. I use a TVC. 

@milpai 
I've used that BT device. It sounds a lot better with decent RCA cables than the one it comes with.