Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

Alway gonna get better and more full sound in almost 9 out of 10 case's with a preamp.. It also adds some of the extra gain and voltage UP you need to drive deeper bass and added weight. Most of the Hi-end CD players have always gotten a bad rap in bass slam running direct, I do not have first hand on this but have heard many models with and without preamp, always go preamp, my preference is with Active and mostly Tubes, but some excellnet solid states as well, Not sure about passive, but would guess you need subwoofers in a system unless you got some super frequency speak's I never heard of or heard.

S23chang I think in theory and practice to our ears that could be very true. Also the fact that the meitner comment provides good proof to practice, as I would agree that should be as good as a seperate pre if not better in some case's

Newerphile, My opinion, lost dynamics and frequency extremes, could sound flat and yes make it seem more like a digital boring source. maybe not every case but in most, basically look at it this way a preamp is sorta line level amplification like an EQ would be, it will boost some of the frequencys to a fuller sounding range not because that is really its intention but because no matter what you are playing with the tiny voltage signal coming from the cd and any extra gain added to a signal that small well will sound like 10 times more effective than going from like a 50 watt amplifier to a 350 watt amplifier if that makes sense, is it pure?, is it Zero distortion?, nothing is, but the closest it sounds like emotion in the music the better in the end, this is mostly achieved by using a preamp in the chain than not from my experiance.