Best preamp is no preamp: always true?

Great question and I don't have the answer. I simply report my experiences as I am not a tech dude or electronics expert. Perhaps others can help. All I know is with all of the various pieces of gear and combinaions of gear my music was improved with a pre. I am sure different reasons for several of the gear match-ups. Perhaps not. Sorry as I do not know why. It just is. Ha!

Thx Sogood51 on your view. I had try few passives including the Placette and never like them just like you said about matching. The Nigra passive is nice but only if you have high output CD player like the Wadia.
Too weak in most of the application.
It sounded slower and less dynamic than active preamps.
As far as Preamp to Amp matching, I never have any problem with good active preamps regardless of which amp I'm using.
Per Dave and my view too, a good active preamp doesn't degrade signal or very little.
IMHO, A perfect preamp should be less colored and yet it doesn't mean it is bright or harsh sounding. It should be transparent and very open sounding.
In most cases, tube preamps tend to sound more open and less compressed than the SS preamps. However, many users complains that some tube preamps has doesn't produce lower frequency as deep as the SS preamp.
The only time that active preamp would be an issue is when you need the phono stage in the active preamp. This part requires matching with the phono cartridge.

Alway gonna get better and more full sound in almost 9 out of 10 case's with a preamp.. It also adds some of the extra gain and voltage UP you need to drive deeper bass and added weight. Most of the Hi-end CD players have always gotten a bad rap in bass slam running direct, I do not have first hand on this but have heard many models with and without preamp, always go preamp, my preference is with Active and mostly Tubes, but some excellnet solid states as well, Not sure about passive, but would guess you need subwoofers in a system unless you got some super frequency speak's I never heard of or heard.

Matrix: your "theory" or "experience" should I say would then lead me to believe that even the best CDP may benefit from having its signal "transformed" via an active PREAMP to tighten up the bass and also increase gain before getting into the AMP. That makes sense to me but is somehow against some well-circulated opinions that a true "Class A" (as in Top notch) PRE is no PRE at all or Passive. Thanks

It's interesting that Ed Meitner provides a full-function active preamp in his EMM DCC2 dac instead of a simple gain control.