I have been using a Creek OBH-12 remote passive attenuator for over 10 years. This discontinued component has to be 1 of the cheaper passives at under $300 new. Before owning this I owned, auditioned, demoed, and borrowed many preamps. They all imposed themselves, in some fashion, on the resultant presentation. Besides the cautions you have already mentioned, the most important point to keep in mind is gain staging. I have had the lifeless sound described previously and it is rectified by having an amp with sufficient gain. While sheer power will drive your speakers to an acceptable level, unless the gain is adequate its akin to boosting a low level signal until one can hear the underlying noise, not taking advantage of the signal to noise ratio inherent in the component. Said another way, its like going 30mph in 5th gear. For 2 channel, I would never go back to an active preamp.
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