Preamps waste of money?

It is a waste of money for you and some with sound preferences like you. That simple really. I must have my great active tube preamp to make music my ears and mind enjoy fully. I would be wasting my money on the rest of my stereo system without the preamp involved.

Yes, I have had all the stars aligned perfectly to hear what a passive is capable of as well as a well executed volume pot in the amp and source.
Just does not do it for me and others. No waste of money for us, but certainly for you it is.

No need to get defensive Grannyring. I didn't say it was a waste of money for your system. I've read your thread on the Dude preamp and almost bought one. BTW, I have a stepped resistor attenuator in my amp, not a volume pot...a big difference in sound quality, IME.

I would have to agree with Ralph of Atma-Sphere..."If you have the passive control in the amp then you can make it work and it will be difficult to find a preamp that will do better." This coming from a guy who designed the MP-1, one of the best tube preamps I've heard.

Dracule1 isn't that kind of like a good integrated?

I could be wrong, but most integrated have active preamp built into it, and they usually use cheap pots, not stepped attenuators. And integrated usually have switching capability for multiple inputs and even balance control...all of these degrades the signal. However, I've seen some tube integrated with a rudimentary pot at the input stage. My tube amps are mono blocks so I have stepped attenuator for each amp which can also serve as balance...probably the best way to set up balance control.