Wadia with or without a preamp ?

In my system the Wadia 860x direct would make you scratch your own eyes out after about twenty minutes of listening to most CDs. I don't know if it was an issue with the Wadia, the quality of the recordings I listen to, or other elements of the signal chain (the Confidence 5s I use are pretty unforgiving of high frequency crap), but it sounds much better run through my preamp

Agree 100% with Ignatz. I have a Wadia 27 that run straight into my SS amp will give you a headache in about 30 minutes. I just could not figure it out but once I put my tube pre back into the loop, I could listen to my system for hours. I am not kidding when I say I would get a headache. I would simply not want to turn on my system. But Wadia swears by the direct-connect methdo. I think if I had a tube amp, perhaps things would be different. And BTW, I use BW N802 speakers which are also quite revealing.

i think it depends on you amp, cables and speakers. my 850 sounds like heaven ran direct. but i'm using vandersteen 3a sigs and a very musical ss amp.