Best Preamp = No Preamp?

I'll say it again,
Most solid state sources these days have very low impedance output stage buffers that can drive anything, and are as good if not better than many preamps and without the colouration, especially tube preamp.
A preamp that can drive 32ohms, that does not make it a necessity to have in the signal path, keep it as a headphone amp. As most solid state sources will drive anything they see today.

Cheers George

A lot of the best recordings made in the "golden age" were so in large part to good engineers using better recording techniques with little concern about dumbing down the sound to the lowest commercial denominator.

The golden age was late fifties right after high fidelity stereo debuted and was a brand new big deal. Like most things it's mostly taken for granted these days. When is the last time anyone ever referred to high fidelity sound? Oh yeah now it's high end and uber expensive. Fact is most audio people listen to today is quite hifi at various price points whereas it took something really special to make it happen with the technology available to consumers in those ancient times.

^One could argue that many engineers go out of their way to make many of today's pop recordings intentionally ultimately bad.

Actually the reason the records produced during the Golden Age sound so freaking good is because they were still recording and mastering with tube electronics, including tube microphones. Hel-loo! It was in the seventies when the industry switched over to solid state that everything went to hell.