You're not losing at all, IMHO, but doing this. I am doing the same with Bel Canto DAC3 into Bel Canto REF1000 MkII monoblocks. I lost absolutely nothing (except additional gain, if it was ever required) from when I used to have a Bel Canto PRe2 in my system which was an excellent, dead neutral sounding preamp. You'll notice that at pretty much all the shows over the last couple of years that the Bel Canto room always has the DAC3 going directly into monoblocks rather than using their PRe3 in the chain. John Stronczer feels this is sonically their best solution if you aren't using an analogue source.
Bel Canto DAC3 without preamp
I have been driving a plinius sa100mkiii with a bel canto dac3 running in the preamp mode. Is there sonic repercussions when doing this? My initial thought was if I could take out a preamp, its just another piece in the chain that is takin out and not losing the signal. Thanks