Best Preamp and Amp combination, interesting finding!!!

oldaudiophile - your statement isn’t true for all cases. I thought the same way by owning nice integrated amps costing $6000 or more. With those systems I used more efficient a little smaller speakers. I upgraded my speakers to larger bigger speakers and the integrated amp couldn’t drive them. I ended up selling the integrated and bought separates with each component costing more than the cost of the integrated.

As for preamp or no preamp, I sold a newer $5k McIntosh preamp and went directly from dac to amp. Paul early on promoted going directly from his DS dac to the amp until they built a preamp and now he promotes using a preamp. I can’t say if his preamp does make it better sounding, I haven’t heard the combo,  I do know what I’ve experienced using another quality preamp vs not using 1

Preamp is the resolution/depth/sound stage/dynamic range tool, amp adds the SPL. So, like computers, GIGO. Garbage in, Garbage out.

Not taking a side on this one, but I do remember what a revelation the Audio Research SP-3 (and later the 3-A-1) was to the industry when it came out.  

We sold it for 595, then 695, then 795 pretty quickly.

Today, used ones go for many thousands--and they came out in 1977!

Cheers!

I would say one thing missing from your report is the class of the amps. Price aside were they both class A, or A/B? Was one A and the other A/B? Was one tube? Same for preamp. Did one introduce a different set up or were they the same and one just cost more than the other with better materials used? For your experiment to work I would say these factors need to be equal or it is a moot point. Could just come down to the fact you like class A amp sound better than class A/B no matter what the preamp is. Then again I don’t have the details of what you tested.

Hello,
I do agree the preamp is the heart and soul of the system. I tried for years using a $3500 Denon receiver as a two channel system. The one thing I found is you have to work so hard to get ok two channel sound compared to using a decent dedicated two channel preamp. It’s not the amps as much as it’s the preamp. Better interconnects and speaker cables helped, but putting on the Nordost power cable had the most impact to my surround system. Especially when you have a lot of channels. I added a better external audiophile amp to the front two channels which helped but the sound stage and decay stayed the same. So I made a mediocre sound play louder. My local Hifi store lets it customers try in your home before you decide to buy. https://holmaudio.com/
When I added an Emotiva 2 channel preamp with home theater pass through the sound out of my system improved so much I was listening to everything and anything I could. I then tried the Rouge RP5 preamp. It sounded like I spent 5x the money. Also, The phono preamp is way better sounding than the one in my $3500 Denon receiver. The sound stage was huge, the decay was insane and it definitely made the headroom better. Believe me there is music you are not hearing in your recordings. Those dead spaces or gaps are not as long as you think. I then was able to demo the $29,000 Ayre KX-R preamp. All I can say is my system will never sound that good again. pure perfection. It made my $275 AT turntable and my $149 Schitt Mani phono preamp sound like it was worth $5000. Yes, $5,000. A preamp is everything. If your system sounds week with no headroom, no soundstage,  no decay, you are just going to perfectly amplify that imperfect sound. In fact I would say the preamp is just as important as the speakers in your system. If you don’t believe me go to your local Hifi store or if you are in the Chicagoland area:
https://holmaudio.com/
and borrow a decent preamp just to hear it in your own home. After you listen a little and pick up your mouth from the floor you can go buy that new preamp so you can hear what your system can really do.