Won't preamps become obsolete?

Even when comparing the sound of a stock Sony SACD player I find the sound more involving and dynamic when run through an active preamp such as my Aesthetix.

A while back I had both the Shanling and Lindemann CD players. I experimented with direct out (both transistor and tube buffer) on the Shanling, only to prefer using it’s output into my pre.

With the Lindemann, I ran it’s output into my Aesthetix Callisto and a top notch passive unit, with everyone preferring the sound of the active. This same experiment was performed a couple of years ago with a Sony SCD1 and a Levinson two piece unit with similar results. In all cases the added dynamics, control and bandwidth of the active pre (Aesthetix and / or Audio Research Ref 2 Mk 2) were the preferred combo over driving the amps directly.

If we look a couple of decades back the preamp was only meant to be for RIAA phono preamplification.
The line sources such as tuners and tape decks were connected directly to the amplifier that is nowdays integrated ones.

There is the SCE Harmonic Recovery System, an active black box with no buttons or knobs, to place between the CD source, and the amp(s) which will improve the quality of signal transmission. It is much cheaper than any preamp, going used on Audiogon in the $250 range, and allows for those who prefer a direct connection, but feel that lack of preamp is failing to optimize the sound reproduction.
I use in each of my systems, both with, and without a preamp stage, and it improves the sound, as a good tweak should.

More than 20 years ago I scapped the preamp in favor of an outboard phono section (PS Audio) fed into a Matrix multichannel decoder (Lafayette SQ W) which was probably the best matrix decoder ever. It provided source switching, gain, and volume control. Eventually I tried out a moving coil pickup, so I had to get a preamp for that.

Today I have a SS processor (Rotel 1066) and the old PS Audio phono section is back in action with a MM phono pickup, (rarely used).

So, in summary, I think that preamps are usually a bunch of unnecessary circuitry that the signal needs to go through. Less is more.

Years ago pre-amps included tone contols. In the future they may include room controls. Multi-channel may expidite this.