The Best Preamp is no Preamp?

I've found over the years that a really good preamp seems to provide to me the best results sonically.  These days, most source components have good output drive, and preamps end up being more attenuator than amplifier.  However, the signal still goes through the preamp's amplification stage and depending on the quality of those components that touch the signal along with the power-supply can provide drive to the amplifier(s), especially with long lead lengths.  Some amplifiers need fairly high input voltage for full output and the input impedance of some amps may require a more robust source signal which is where a great preamp will be better able to drive it.    Yes...  The preamp will add in its own sonic signature (color if you will) but in my experience, has resulted in the best sound for my listening enjoyment.  Obviously, there is no simple answer for this question !  It's basically the exquisite dance of specific components and how they play together for your personal sonic enjoyment...  

Thanks for sharing your experience, Brandon...

The greatest take-away from your post is the importance of "doing the work."  Early on in my audio experience, I hooked up with passionate, energetic music lovers that were excited to do the work necessary to achieve great sound.  My 80's brick & mortar dealer removed his living room picture window to install Altecs, for example.  My 90's mod engineer/friend would spend hours testing isolation approaches, including those "under the hood" of gear.  And yes, changes can prove sideways or negative, but, until you try.

Efforts are always rewarded.  A great preamp in a specific SYSTEM may prove best, or not.  Often, compromises need be made often due to mixing digital and analog gear, whether it be volume controls, wiring approaches and room requirements in placement.  In recent years, I've learned room/loudspeaker integration to be most vital.  Study, experiment with tuning a room (laser ruler a must.)  Arrival timing, room resonances, bass nodes, ceiling and floor bounce, distances between and to your speakers, the tilt of the speakers in how that relates to your listening height.  Experiment, experiment.  When you find *** IT ***, once found, "it" ...will be readily apparent to you.  THEN, everything you do upstream will take on much more life and character in your system.  Experiments with wire, electronic gear, contact enhancement, isolation will begin to reveal themselves once those windows open. 

And yes, many of these things cannot be measured, however, we each own the best testing devices ever created.  I'm squarely in both camps, measurements indeed matter, known science matters to get close, THEN the fun work begins! 

Some experienced listeners seem to have personal favorites in what's most important to address, often, impressed by some specific game changing experience in their journey...amp, TT, speakers...you name it.  Often, that can become the "focus point" for individuals, however, as many have voiced here, everything does indeed matter once the windows open to great sound.  Experiment, experiment. 

Think Positive, Test Negative                              More Peace, Pin

@pinthrift 

👍

I have a Schiit Freya+. This pre-amp allows 3 modes of volume control
utilizing relay-switched resisters. Select passive, solid state or vacuum tube amplification.

Experimenting changed many of my original presumptions. Multiple outputs allow for easy bi-amping. Unique value.

That means the pre does change the original music signal into slightly different signal. The modified signal would be good to our ears. Do not praise the preamp that makes poor source better. Just blame the poor source. If you have good source (well-recorded CD for example), you can enjoy the music much better with no preamp. Why does tube-based gears make good sound? Just because the tubes tend to add some distortion to the original signal, and the added signal makes our ears pleasing. The added signal is usually even-order frequencies.

Shorter speaker cables make the over-all sound better? I have to laugh at the guy who says that. Inside the speakers, there are very long coils. Due to limited space condition, the coil's physical shape can not be better than that of speaker cables. Compromised long speaker voice coil and very short speaker cable? Usually, the speaker cable length does not matter very much unless the cables run longer than 50 feet.

A preamp may well not load a source as heavily so the source may sound better due to wider bandwidth and lower distortion.

The choke in a speaker is something very different from the speaker cables! Speaker cables have low inductance while a choke has high inductance. But if we are to take this argument on its face, the correct conclusion would be that since a choke as able to cause highs to roll off and its substantially similar to a speaker cable, the conclusion would be that you really don't want long speaker cables! 

In practice, long speaker cables often cause a loss of bass impact and intelligibility of vocals. This is easily measured and demonstrated.