Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

Kalan you are right. I posted above and tried the passive and no preamp thing. A good active preamp always sounded better. It may be possible that in a certain set-up no pre or a passive pre is better, but I HAVE NEVER HEARD IT COME OUT THAT WAY.
I tried with many different combo's of gear and the active pre always won out pretty easily. I personally think those who find a passive or no pre to sound better like a "certain" type of sound. That type of sound is a little on the lean side. To some this sounds more detailed and transparent. I think one perceives this and is tricked by the overall leaness of the presentation. Bottom line, the preless or passive camp just likes it more and that is cool!
Wish I did as I could save money without a pre.

Bill

A meaning of a PREAMP(POWER-AMP) is relatively new v.s. previouse meaning of just an AMPLIFIER.
Whatever we take as PREAMP is actually the part of an AMPLIFIER.
So depending on a number of an input(driving) stages of the amplifier you may or maynot need active preamplification.

You may not need it functionally, but my ears say you need it for the best sound performance.

Marakanetz, you make a good point. I guess it would be possible to have a high out put CD player with decent volume control of some kind and maybe a power amp with a good input section to combine to take the place of a pre-amp.

Someone else on this thread pointed out (I think), though, that the likelihood that the volume controls on most variable out CDP's will compete with the attenuators on good pre-amps is somewhat low---all other things being equal.

There is also the issue of impedance matching. Are there enough variable out CDP's that also have both sufficient gain and low impedance to "drive" an appropriately equipped (sufficient input stage) power amp properly? I don't know. Maybe this has been covered elsewhere in this thread. Sorry for the redundancy, if so.

Grannyring, Thanks for the corroboration. We just haven't heard a pre'-less setup done right, I suppose.

What about integrateds with a passive preamp built in? The Portal Panache or Song Audio's Vasant_K are basically configured as a power amp with a passive volume attenuator and input selector. I have not listened to these integrateds but have heard positive comments from satified users. Do these units exhibit the typical characteristics of a passive preamp (lacking dynamics, requires high input voltage from source, etc)?