Preamps can color sound considerably. Surprising?

not if you have one that's neutral.

The preamp is the heart of my system. I use a DAC with perfect measurements and class D amplifiers, on a multi-amped fully horn loaded system.

The amps by themselves sound a bit sterile, and the DAC while very good for the money doesn't add much "flesh" to the bones. The active crossover can be considered as transparent as can be.

My (vintage) preamp, on the other hand, is wonderful. It's a rather unknown model (Korn&Macway SP100) built like a high end device, and I recapped it using NOS Roederstein Gold caps in the PSU and Elna SilmicII everywhere else. It is majorly responsible for the musicality of the system. I've tried without preamp, I've tried other preamps, I keep coming back to it for its precise yet lush presentation. It's like it's holding everything together. Take it out, and the magic is gone!

Do pre-'s effect the final product?  Yup.

That's why I don't have one anymore in-line.  Available, yes.  Optional, sure.

Pre- and post-eq instead?  Yup, and happy about it.

More noise from the equipment fans than the system itself.  Not 'black', but dark enough 'gray' to suffice....

Absolute neutrality shouldn't be the goal (and is unattainable) Musical enjoyment is what we are after - if you can still recognize the voice of your favorite soprano / tenor, it's all good.

Those engineers operating the studio gear are putting that sacred "absolute sound" through miles of wires, pan pots, addled brains, unclean tape heads, unclean bald heads, digital manipulation, badly tuned pianos, and personal tastes just like the home hifi geek. The only way around it is to hire musicians to form a circle around you while you lie on the floor after recently having cleaned your ears. Preamps sound however the designer wanted them to so it's up to you to decide what sonic manipulation you prefer. If you're lucky you can enjoy music...or spoken word...or dump trucks backing up...lucky you.