Which has a greater influence on sound quality, the amp or the preamp?

@scm 

I’m with you. I’ve had preamps from Pass and Herron. Very good stuff.

But, I’ll stick with my EM/IA Remote Autoformer (pure silver) all day, every day. When I put that sucker in my system it was one of those glorious audiophile days. In the year or two since, I have not thought about wanting/needing anything else.

Though I’ve been told I may not know it 😆

Well, sound preferences differ, so do preamps. As far as I know, most audiophiles do have active preamp in their systems. Going direct can give more pure but less refined presentation.

@inna Yes, I agree most do, but that doesn`t mean much really.

Can you explain the "less refined presentation" part ?

I’m of the camp of “the entire audio chain matters”.  It’s not pre vs amp, but rather work on the weak links in one’s audio chain 

Signal source. Garbage In, Garbage Out.