Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

Alway gonna get better and more full sound in almost 9 out of 10 case's with a preamp.. It also adds some of the extra gain and voltage UP you need to drive deeper bass and added weight. Most of the Hi-end CD players have always gotten a bad rap in bass slam running direct, I do not have first hand on this but have heard many models with and without preamp, always go preamp, my preference is with Active and mostly Tubes, but some excellnet solid states as well, Not sure about passive, but would guess you need subwoofers in a system unless you got some super frequency speak's I never heard of or heard.

Matrix: your "theory" or "experience" should I say would then lead me to believe that even the best CDP may benefit from having its signal "transformed" via an active PREAMP to tighten up the bass and also increase gain before getting into the AMP. That makes sense to me but is somehow against some well-circulated opinions that a true "Class A" (as in Top notch) PRE is no PRE at all or Passive. Thanks

It's interesting that Ed Meitner provides a full-function active preamp in his EMM DCC2 dac instead of a simple gain control.

My experience mimics that of Matrix, and that includes having run both the Audio Aero Capitole and the APL 3910 direct, two very fine CD players in my book.

I think there is only one theory: The moment signal left the source it is already degrading.
The active preamp helps restore some of the lost signals while the passive just let it flow through.