Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

Solman989,
In case of integrated amps you ought to figure that the amplification part does it all where the volume pot usually connected onto the driving stage(realy becomes active after all)

In some of the passive-stage integrated amps you may feel the lack of drive and controll f.ex. Creek 4330. At the same time I could contradict myself saying that it just hasn't enough watts, but after trying it to work as poweramp only with active drive it was way different:
Still lack of power but controll increased no doubt.

Another of my discoveries would state that you can add even a chain of preamps and you will gain even more and more controll but to the point where's your music would become overcompressed since every preamp would invert signal i.e. make a negative feedback level deeper.

Counterpoint power amplifiers have option to have a high impedance/sensitivity driving stage specially designed for the passive preamps. This driving stage isn't recommended for the best product performance to whoever prefers active preamplification... Which means that preamplification and driving stages should be just enough not to get high level of a signal compression and so I guess that hobbyist who's matching components should pay to some degree an attention to this factor such as a number of preamplification and driving stages of mainly separate amplification components.

For what it's worth, I've found my Levinson 390S running directly into my CAT JL-3's to sound much better without my ARC Ref 2 Mk II. Of course, the 390S DOES have the same analog volume control found in Levinson preamps.

active preamp. The only direct CD connection I have heard and liked was a $6K Wadia. For that you can buy a great CD and pre while maintaining flexibility.

A passive preamp will often sound better than an active but that is only because most active pre's are poor.When you discover a really good active pre-like the Suprateks,it becomes obvious that the preamp is actually more important than the power amp.You can never achieve good sound from a system using a good power amp and an average pre but you can get great sound from a good pre and an average power amp.

JT

I tried a Placette RVC, with .5 meter Audioquest Jaguar cables to my Mcintosh MC 2000 amp.
It lacked dynamics. The music lacked life. My Supratek Grange, is 1,000 times better.

I have also done the expermient with hooking my cd player directly up to the amp. A pre amp to me just seems to pull together a more musical presentation.