My preamp is the heart of my system. An active preamp has a tremendous effect on the sound, IME. Proponents of passive preamps would obviously disagree. In your situation, you could use a direct connection and then, if you can borrow an active preamp from a dealer or a friend, compare your system's sound while using the preamp. Just keep in mind that different preamps have different effects on the system's sound.
connectng CD player directly to amp, good or bad?
Some CD players with volume control can be connected directly to power amp, bypassing pre-amp. Mark Levinson 39 and Mcintosh 301 can do that. When I mentioned this to sales reps at dealers, they were all skeptical. They said pre-amp/amp is always better or go for int-amp. I am not s sure. Mcintosh manual shows how to connect CD player to power amp directly and it makes better sense for me since I am not going to have any other source unit. If I need more later, I can always add pre-amp. Is pre-amp really necessary?