Are Preamplifier’s Relevant Today or just a Hinderance with Digital Playback ?

Thanks for answering my inquiry, I agree but I just see a conflicting statement for me.
If it is a circle of confusion how do I know I am reproducing the media "as neutral as possible"? it looks like a chicken and egg riddle

@brewmasterdon

I simply feel that my current main rig sounds better without a pre-amp and that they generally hamper detail and resolution

That is all that matters

I do like the way in which the forum members on this thread have conducted themselves, good honest discussions are a health thing and frankly this sport could use more of it,

Agreed, for a moment I thought you will follow the standard lashing out of others ... glad you didn't, as I said about Charles, you have my utter respect

@brewmasterdon

So you are saying that running through a bunch of resistors, transformers and caps, to say nothing of connectors and extra sets of wire/wire's doesn't colour the sound by comparison to running direct??

Hi Don, I know you are talking to Charles but just allow me to briefly comment, while what you are saying is "logical" and BTW I agree on that statement with you, I have personally run direct from several digital sources to several amplifiers and these digital sources as you wisely mentioned have transformers (in some cases), resistors and caps as well. IME if the electrical parameters impedance, output / input voltages and such are not compatible, the sound will suffer, even with the direct connection. Of course I'm not trying to convince you as I respect your position, I don't consider myself a golden ears subject, just providing my opinion on which I agree with Charles mostly.
Now I know certain devices (May DAC with output buffer) are supposedly a very good match "direct" with amplifiers, I would love to hear it as I don't own a May DAC but I'm sure the results could be potentially outstanding, but again we are talking about a DAC with kind of an active output stage (preamp).
I'm not disregarding what you are saying it is just I haven't found a scenario yet that I empirically have tested that works this way, my testings have been limited to a few dacs and amplifiers only, none of the DACs with active output stages.

@charles1dad

You trust your ears and I trust mine, as a result we've reached different conclusions. You find your preferred approach presumably more sonically accurate. I find my approach more sonically realistic. We're both happy and neither of us has to settle for the others choice. It works out fine.

I agree on that Charles, it is all about personal opinions.

@atmasphere

As I pointed out, if you get all your ducks in a row they can work quite well

Hey Ralph, by "ducks in a row" you mean electrical parameters and compatibility between digital source and amplifiers?

One must always be careful to not construe personal anecdote as absolute

Right, agreed

Now on the colorations, the only reference I get is live events, when I used to attend more than 1 year ago live events, tonality and sound of instruments were my reference, so that is what I use on a daily basis to reference "neutral", but then you have the recordings, which are usually made in the studio, live events on churches and cathedrals have the "room" added into the equation. Studio aside from the mastering engineer don't.This is the part I still don't quite get, not directly related to this discussion but indirectly.
How would you know (and Ralph is the ideal person to answer this as he is kind of a hands on mastering / recording engineer PLUS musician too, real renaissance man) what colorations are when listening to your system.

The life event reference could be actually divergent from this.