Re: Active vs Passive w/preamp
Well, I am not sure about the Duncan actives, but the EMG actives have a very weak magnetic field, and, hence, a weak signal that gets amplified by the preamp, and brought to higher levels. Not sure about what the wind of the EMG actives is like, but the magnet is very weak itself. There is very little string pull, and the pickups can/should be set closer to the strings than you would a standard passive.
Many of the popular EMG models also have blades instead of polepieces, unlike the majority of passives, which also affects the sound.
So yeah, no, I don't think just adding a preamp to a passive would make it sound like an EMG 81. Then again, "making a passive sound like an active" is very broad. An EMG 57 sounds VERY different from a Duncan EMTY, which soulds VERY different from a Dave Mustaine siggy, which sounds VERY different from an EMG 60X. There is not one and only "active sound". Active pickups are a sum of their parts, not just their preamp.
Then again, I'm pretty sure the preamp on a EMG 81 is different than the preamp in an EMG 81X, which is different from the preamp in the Duncan standard Blackouts, which is different from the preamp on the Blackout Metal, and so on.
Passives running into a preamp can sound great. The "advantage" of, for example, an EMG 81 (or 57, or 85, or Duncan Blackout, pick your poison) is that only an 81 sounds like an 81. There are a few passives and other actives that might get you into the ballpark, though, but none is spot on.
