Passive Balanced Preamp

[Josh]

Audio gods, bestow on me your knowledge!

I have been planning my 2-ch system for years, but I'm slowly moving in the direction considering it involves me replacing every component I have and a significant investment that I might not have, but we'll see. Anyway...

I'm still leaning towards getting the OPPO BDP-95 (or now 105) to use as my sole source. Initially my thought was that I would just run XLR cables from that unit directly to a two-channel amp and use the volume control on the unit to control the volume. However, I have been reading that the volume control on the unit is digital, so that sound quality is lost when you lower the volume (the control is just for balancing, not for volume control).

So its my understanding that I simply need a preamp to control the volume before the amp. So I was looking around and found a simple unswitched, direct preamp for a decent price:

Axiom 2

It is a passive unit, but I just figure I'm getting down to the most direct, unaltered sound to my amp. I only have one source, so I don't need a switch. Its completely balanced, so I don't lose that benefit by going with a preamp. And it isn't terribly expensive to just control the volume. I'm liking the idea.

My questions are:
1) Do I need a preamp?
2) Is this preamp going to do what I need it to do (control volume)?
3) Is there some other product that I should be looking at?

I really would love to have one that is remote controlled, but everything I've seen has multiple inputs and switches that I don't need.


Thanks!