Isn’t “straight wire with attenuation” the goal?
Yes I firmly believe this, "if" impedance matching is good and you have enough volume, direct source to amp is the closest to that you’ll find to the above statement, giving the most transparent, dynamic, accurate staging and depth of sound possible from the source.
Anything active in the path can only add noise, distortion/s, and reduce the dynamic range (unless it has a dynamic range enhancer circuit which sound like c**p)
Cheers George