Who needs a Preamp??

made a lot better sound than going direct. Specially on dynamics.

That is the sound of a typical "impedance mismatch" when this is said with direct or passive or even active preamp .

Audiophiles need to understand this "impedance matching" (>1:10 ratio) a lot more.
Then there will be a lot less experimenting and expensive mistakes done if they do.
If not they’re just p*****g into the wind changing things without any idea of what’s needed.

Just like a "impedance mismatch" can be had with "nearly" all tube preamps into a power amp with less than <10-20kohm input impedance.

It’s called "impedance matching"
And it goes right down the chain from source to speakers.
1: Source direct to poweramp,
2: Source to preamp,
3: Preamp to poweramp,
4: And yes even poweramp to speaker load impedance (this ones called damping factor)

Cheers George

The whole issue can be nicely summed up with a, “it depends”.  

Of course I might be accused of being lazy with that response, but it depends.

I am also a poster child for preamps.  Won’t go into the dozens I have built and owned, but I love preamps! Beyond infatuation at this stage in our long relationship. Yep, it depends says it all.  

To use or not to use preamp it depends from a system and amplifier topology.

I use SET 300B amplifier. And in this topology the short signal path is important.
My amp is integrated and it is a good solution for low power SET amplifiers.
I also have an external phono stage for vinyl source.
Both phono stage and DAC are connected to input of my integrated SET.

If someone use more powerful amplifiers (especially mono-blocks) with more sophisticated circuit and long signal path it is more reason to use preamp.