Transparent low-gain preamp?

Hi everyone. My system is suffering from too much gain. I rarely get past about 9 o clock on my preamp's volume knob. Things sound pretty good, but that much attenuation seems counterproductive. My system is this:

Nottingham Spacedeck w/ Spacearm and Denon DL-103r -> New Valve Order SPA one - PrimaLuna 3 -> Rogue Hydra -> Martin Logan Vantage.

The NVO has 60dB of gain in MC mode.

The Prologue 3 is specced as giving 12dB gain, but I've rolled in some GE 5751s in place of the 12AX7s, which should bring the gain down to 9 or 10dB.

At some point I'll likely be moving to a different amp and speakers, but with a baby on the way, that's a long way off.

So, anybody know of any quality low-gain preamps? Preferably one that's quite transparent? Thanks.

 

How about a zero gain passive or buffer, for example:

Passive
Schiit Sys
Luminous Axiom II
Khozmo
Tortuga
Hornshoppe the Truth

Buffer
iFi iTube
First Watt B1
Dodd

 

Indeed, I have considered a passive. I'm a bit concerned about possible loss of dynamics. I feel my current system already rounds transients off just a tiny bit.

I suppose many passives are cheap enough to just try it out anyway.

 

Good point. My experience with passives has been hit or miss, if possible try before you buy or buy used and resell without losing $.

In addition to passive and zero gain buffers there are some variable gain preamps like this one from Dodd that goes from 0-18db:
http://www.doddaudio.com/Preamp.php

 

I use a Tortuga passive with my Rogue Medusa. The Medusa has a win of 31 db so a passive works very well. The Hyda probably has he same win level. Tortuga or Lightspeed Attenuators are options that I researched.

 

I also use a Tortuga. It passes more signal at full bypass than my previous Creek resistor passive.

 

First Sound preamps have around 15dB of gain, and it works quite well, especially if you have an amplifier of high sensitivity, as I do. I am also looking for a low gain preamp. One brand with high gain is Conrad Johnson, so you don't want to go there! Audible Illusions preamps also have low gain and are very transparent and delicate sounding (a flute can sound heartbreaking on either the First Sound or the Modulus (Audible Illusions' brand)), which speaks to emotional involvement in a component.