Should I eliminate my preamp?

I just travelled this road.  The direct from DAC was clean, extended, with great dynamics from lower mids down.  Things like Neil Young at the Cellar Door sounded live, and bombastic things like Emerson Lake and Palmer sounded bombastic.  No listening fatigue.

Then Karma stepped in.  A friend sent an email saying he was downsizing and selling his system.  Amid the pieces was his totally rebuilt Audio Research SP3.  I tried it and was amazed at the difference. Voices were illuminated and compelling. Joni shimmered.  Percussion sounded like wood and membranes instead of thuds. Performers I thought I knew sounded more three-dimensional and nuanced.  The difference in soundscape from album to album was surprising.  I was entranced by what I heard, whereas the direct link presentation was far less captivating.

But I lost "bombastic" and the lower frequencies were softened on the SP3, probably because there was insufficient room for larger caps in the rebuild, and that rebuild was done quite awhile ago.

I was so convinced that I searched for the right linestage.  I could find nothing but praise for ARC REF 3 linestage, so I'm spending a lot of money I didn't intend to.

My schooling and career was about logic, and logically the direct link should be best, and that added piece shouldn't be able to add something that wasn't there before, but this is about experience and emotions, and logic only takes you so far.

Since I've gone from tube integrated, to direct-from-DAC to tube amp, to solid state linestage, to classis ARC tube pre-amp, to newer ARC tube linestage, I've decided that....it depends. I have some speculations and experiences but few technical chops.

I do think a lot of linestages are tone controls that shape the sound, which is fine.  In that vain, I think Mark Levinson had it right with the Cello Palette, which allowed the listener to shape for speakers, room, and personal preference.  Someone should make a great modern version of this where you can store a few profiles.  Sometimes you need more cowbell, and sometimes you need Big Bottom.

But I'm still haunted by how alive the tricked out SP3a sounds and plan to give it another go.  Once you hear it, others seem veiled and more "recorded."  Less involving. I also think tube pre's can add pleasing even harmonics that is just nice to listen to.

It also seems that some tubed units create faster swings from soft-to-loud and a sound stops faster, producing more nuanced, lifelike vocals.  My hunch is that this relates to very good power supplies and associated circuits.

I'm still not satisfied, and may try Backert or Sachs, since I want those lifelike vocals without softening the bass.

Just to update my own experimentation...I found happiness with an ARC REF 3 linestage, but only after I replaced the tubes with a spare set of new Sovteks that came with it.  The existing tubes were well within their life-cycle, but I did noticed it had the SED Winged C 6550 in the power supply, and there has been some reporting that the original ARC Sovtek 6550 sounds better, so maybe that was the difference.  I notice some good prices on Ref 3's, so I'm passing on my experience.

It was an educational process.  I came to realize how important words are to me, and I get deep joy in hearing the nuance in how an artist delivers the words.  That was the attribute that was so hard to find in swapping equipment, and what was lost in my specific instance when using DAC-direct or the solid state linestage that I tried.

Someone like Joni Mitchell can sound exceeding pure on many systems, but I can now hear how flawed she is, which let's me rejoice in her brilliance and humanness.  Of course, someone like Dylan can be endlessly appreciated in his voicing, inflection and phrasing, and my audiophile satisfaction is directly related to the degree to which it is revealed as a human voice in the room.

So the hunt for what a linestage can do was rewarding and recommended.

Cheers!