Eliminated my preamp with amazing results

No offense but I think we are repeating the story telling of the parable of blind men and an elephant.  According to Wikipedia, the moral of the parable is that "humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true." 

For me, understanding the intricate elements inside a preamp and how they synergize with other components remains a puzzle. Waiting for a knowledgeable person to shed light on what truly enhances the system's sound quality. Mr. Paul McGowan discussed the concept of 'separation' between the source and amplifier, speculating its impact. Additionally, he mentioned the potential benefits of negative feedback in enhancing linearity and distortion performance.

My original version Schiit Freya has a passive setting (two actually, one with FET enhancement for longer cables supposedly) that lacks the gain of the tube setting but still...it's passive. I use it to keep the tubes "honest" (are they dying?) but prefer the tubes as I like the gain, and they pull more detail from the source and fool me into thinking I'm having a good time. They're NOS GE 6SN7GTBs that really last a long time ( years...I have a backup set in case they start deteriorating).

There is no simplistic explanation for a preamplifier or against it ...

It is relative to electrical matching, volume control, tone control , the specs of the dac source and the spec of the amplifier and i forgot probably many other things...

There is no singular rule here as the simplistic eliminate the preamplifier all the time or put a preamplifier all the time ...

And which preamplifier tube or S. S. and for which amplifier Tubes or S.S. ? From which dac S.S. or a tube one ? etc...

You must read the electrical specs compatibility first then listen to it .,..

The preamplifier you eliminate can even be replaced by a better one... Or perhaps you dont need one really ... Do you need tone controls and tube sound and volume control ? etc

Do you need a headphone out absent from the power amplifier ?  etc

😊

If one carefully assesses impedance and voltage specs and/or any measurements available and how well each piece in the signal chain directly integrates with the others accordingly you might get a clue as to which combo is most likely to sound best, pre-amp or no pre-amp, but even then lots of other factors come into play so again each case is different and you have to directly compare approach a with approach b each time to in fact know which sounds better. What sounds better is also a function of personal preferences so throw that in and all bets are off. What others report with different gear involved is interesting perhaps but really not very useful to predict how each new and different case will turn out.

How are volume controllers in the anaolog signal path (after the DAC) done today? Not anymore a variable resistance (either potentiometer or a multistep switch with descrete, high quality resistors for each step)?