H; I think your assessment is mostly accurate, but only assuming you have excellent DA conversion and volume control as Lazarus points out. That said, following a trial of running a Sony XA7 CD player direct to amp, I very happily went back to my 6 tube pre-amp. The XA7 direct to amp produced music that was thin, detailed to the point of "analytical", and lacked the body and warmth of real music. I did not care for the music using this set-up at all. It did not sound either accurate or natural.
My tubed pre-amp adds body, some warmth, soundstaging, is less detailed-- in a good way, has better PRT, and is in general just more musical. It was my assessment at the time that the XA7 did not have a very good volume control system, but the XA7 is a $3K CD player, and I had expected better performance in direct mode. So my CD direct to amp was not good. I do think that a very good CD player, such as the Levinson 39/390S, would sound very good direct to amp. Just my limited experience going direct to amp. Cheers. Craig
My tubed pre-amp adds body, some warmth, soundstaging, is less detailed-- in a good way, has better PRT, and is in general just more musical. It was my assessment at the time that the XA7 did not have a very good volume control system, but the XA7 is a $3K CD player, and I had expected better performance in direct mode. So my CD direct to amp was not good. I do think that a very good CD player, such as the Levinson 39/390S, would sound very good direct to amp. Just my limited experience going direct to amp. Cheers. Craig