Preamp Noise with High-Efficiency Speakers

The findings of your musician friend comes as no surprise to me or others. When the full body, tone, color saturation and dynamics are preserved the sound is more realistic and live like. This is confirmed repeatedly when listening to live music. Components that are incapable of delivering this vital (and obvious) musical information are deficient. The complaint that passive or direct can sound lean, thinner and less dynamic is subtraction of information from the audio signal it would seem. If a good active preamp avoids this flaw that would be desirable.
Charles,

"being more ripe, full-bodied, and solid. I've bought and sold hundreds on audiogon."

All preamps sound different,Yingtonggao this is why you've bought hundreds?? they do not all sound like straight wire with gain (uncoloured) otherwise they would all sound the same and there would have been no reason for you to buy hundreds.
As they are all coloured in some way and not true to the sound of the source you are looking to find the colouration you prefer. Just these two statements of yours have basically said to me just that.

Cheers George

OY vey!

they do not all sound like straight wire with gain (uncoloured) otherwise they would all sound the same and there would have been no reason for you to buy hundreds

Pretty much any component in one's rig has a sound of its own, i.e. is "colored". This includes also the cables, which you keep on bring up as your reference. Can you be more specific and tell us which brand of wires are you talking about?

All preamps sound different,Yingtonggao this is why you've bought hundreds?? they do not all sound like straight wire with gain (uncoloured) otherwise they would all sound the same and there would have been no reason for you to buy hundreds.
As they are all coloured in some way and not true to the sound of the source you are looking to find the colouration you prefer. Just these two statements of yours have basically said to me just that.

Another thread, still missing the point.

People don't just listen to a DAC but a system of components. Every component is colored and has a sonic signature. They mix and match to get proper synergy. It's possible they don't like sound of DAC with just straight wire/gain but only in a system because of synergy. I'm sure you can build a very nice system with a passive pre. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

With all the hype, I bought a Lightspeed Attenuator. It's good but NO comparison to my active pre. The active has superior imaging with well defined edges, 3D, dynamics, vivid, color ...

My active pre is relatively expensive, it's GREAT value with the quality of sound it produces. Same with my speakers, relatively expensive but I prefer over speakers costing 2X+ ... Components don't have to be low price to be good value IMO.