Is Pre-Amp needed

The coloration of the music customized to your liking is what it’s all about in my opinion. That’s what interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, tube rolling, etc does. With or without a preamp of your choice depending on what sound you like best. No one answer is universal.

lak said " Music customized to your liking ". System synergy. I said this on another thread. : " I believe an audio system, as a whole, should be able to " show forth " the recordings, in such a way, that when you are in your listening seat ( the sweet spot ), you are hearing your favorite artists and musicians, performing at their " finest ", in their chosen acoustic space, and you, are completely engulfed, and entertained, in the experience ". A final studio recording will not have a singer sound like he / she has a cold. They will record it on a day the voice is strong and competent. This is what I meant as " finest ". Imaging, spatial localization, ambience, are all being created by the recording and mastering engineers, as these characteristics are on the recordings. We all choose to hear our recordings with certain likes, wants and desires, whatever ways it gets us there. Passive, is " my way " to get their. Enjoy ! MrD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=377&v=Dh27E7YKN9s

I guess it depends on your definition. If your DAC/Source has a volume control then you are using a preamp. It may be rudimentary or elaborate but it is nonetheless a preamp. Some Dacs/Sources have exceptional inboard analog preamp circuitry while others may not.

For those that say they prefer the purity of no preamp, they are actually saying that they prefer the sound of THEIR source’s preamp rather than the sound of THEIR source’s preamp run through another outboard preamp.

For those with digital volume controls on their source that they prefer the sound of, they may be truncating the data. In those cases, a source with a digital volume control will typically sound better run at full volume (or the point on the source volume where data is no longer truncated) through a high quality preamp.

I have a $11k retail DAC which has a very nice analog output stage and volume control. It sounds really nice amp direct. It sounds even better through an Audio Research Reference preamp. YMMV.

 THEIR source’s preamp

???  Sorry there's no such thing!
The output buffer in the source is the same if it has a digital domain volume control or not. And only if that volume control goes below 75% of full does it start to "bit strip". 
Many hiend source counter this by have a gain setting for the buffer stage, so then the digital volume control can be used at or above 75%. And if you have one that doesn't have the buffer gain setting or digital volume control the the answer is to leave it at full up and use an external passive volume control.

I have a $11k retail DAC which has a very nice analog output stage and volume control. It sounds really nice amp direct. It sounds even better through an Audio Research Reference preamp. YMMV.

If that's the case then you don't like the sound of your source direct, and need to colour it with the AR preamp's colorations and distortions. 

Cheers George  

George, your absolute assertions are not absolute for all equipment. The ARC preamp provides more of everything, especially the layering of instruments. Put a great preamp in your system and see for yourself. If you dont like it then you have only established one data point, yours, not an absolute.