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

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

Yes.

You don't know what the "colorations" are. You're getting into what Floyd Toole called the circle of confusion. Take the mic, room, equipment, speakers etc.. used to record and these Recordings are as different as night and day from each other and whatever you're using to playback with.

I have recordings on LP that I recorded. I know what the live performance sounded like. I know the microphones (U67s) really well. So when I play the LP I know immediately what is going on with the system I'm hearing. It helps to have the masters!

Lacking that your point is profoundly important. It is for this reason that I recommend anyone to get good mics and a decent recording system and see if they can sort things out. Do some on location recordings. Acoustic spaces that you know are good places to see if you can do this. This will really help you sort out what works and what doesn't.

My take is that using a tube preamplifier serves digital sources very well. The amount and distribution of gain in the system does become an issue.

I've found a tube preamp with digital source and solid state amp to be most helpful.  Takes away the digititus.  

You don’t know what the "colorations" are. You’re getting into what Floyd Toole called the circle of confusion. Take the mic, room, equipment, speakers etc.. used to record and these Recordings are as different as night and day from each other and whatever you’re using to playback with. There’s no way to recreate the thousands of different combinations to get what the final mixers heard. It’s a waste of time trying to tune your system to a live event or certain recordings the best you can do IMO is reproduce what’s on the media as neutral as possible, use as transparent gear as you can possibly get.

I agree. There are too many variables to ever know how close Your system recreates the sound that was recorded. Even @atmasphere , having recorded a piece and so in theory has something to compare the recording to, is not really close to knowing - unless you are playing back the recording in the same room as it was recorded you get the massive variable of the Room. A recording studio and your listening room will make instruments sound very different.

If you listen to live instruments many of them are sharp sounding. Many audiophiles like smoother sounding. I dropped the ideal of true to life sound when i admitted to myself that i have preferences.