Sound without the Preamp ?

I found the same thing removing a top end tub preamp and going directly into my tube monoblocks BUT only after changing my DAC and fiddling with to get the right cables. You were fortunate that it worked on the first try.

toMbhcid: In many combinations with a passive preamp what you have heard as to loss of "musical" properties matches my experience. If your CD player or DAC was designed to drive a power amp with an itegrated volume control that's one thing. If the design assumed an active line stage the combo of CD player or DAC, interconnects and power amp(s) may work or not. I tried several combinations before I found one that I liked overall better than a high quality line stage. I now use no preamp and a "shunt to ground" volume control from audiotweakers.com on the balanced inputs of my Melos monoblocks. That set up sounds better than the passsive preamps that I have tried.

Joe re ULTIMATE ATTENUATOR. I need to be more careful with Friday posts after the second magarita. The shunt to ground that I referred to is the Ultimate Attenuator from Electronic Visionary Systems. I use the balanced version with my Melos Soloist Triode Monoblocks. I am VERY happy with them. They turned out to be a far better solution than any of the passive preamps I tried. The sound is fantasic without any of the loss I perceived with seperate passive units. I agree with redkiwi that this is probably better with tube amps amps because of the relatively high impedance. The speakers are Dunlavy SC-Vs. Driving my Melos are a Theta Pro GenVa and the new MSB Platinum DAC/Upsampler. I have multiple digital sources. I use Nordost quattro fil as the analog interconnect. With any decent CD I prefer the sound direct in as opposed to going through a passive, a Melos MA333B or a CJ 16ls. There are some CDs where extra tube noise make an abominable CD of a great performance listenable so I am going to keep either my ARc SP-11 or the Melos SHA Maestro ref as an euphonic filter. Downsides recabling for Vinyl but I agree with someone on audiogon who said that is best to listen to either Vinyl or CD but not switch during a listening session. The Balanced Attenuators must be mounted in your power amp. He no longer makes them as part of the connector. Finally, even with the Ultimate Attenuator, these isn't certainty that your DAC or CD and your poweramp will work as a combination without a line stage. Bottom line for me absolutely better than any passive I have tried (which is most available). Better thanclass A tube preamps on a decent recording. Finally, my wife who is as big a music fanatic as I am agrees which is probably the biggest endorsement. One of the reasons that I have so many preamps is we had different tastes in tube preamps even down to the tube sets!