My Only Question Is.........

Thanks for the responses. I thought I'd make the question a little sarcastic and inflammatory seeing as I'm a virgin in the forum. I need an identity. I run a Wadia directly and have found the sound driving my amplifiers directly to be unmatched. There has not been a single preamp I have tried (I have recently been wanting to add a tuner)that has not been a compromise in this regard, and I've had some good ones. My point was it seems there is a reluctance to acknowledge this route as superior in all digital systems and I'm surprised it hasn't received the attention it deserves. You are right, there are several other CD players available that can drive direct but if they are not doing it in the digital domain then they are trying to be both a cd player and a preamp and in my experience they are huge dissapointments (the sony for example)Who wants to place the most critical component of a great preamp, its volume control, and strap it to the back of a noisy chasis? With the exception possibly of the krell which has enough hardware it may as well be both. Thanks for the response, I don't belive there is a preamp which was my point.

Carl,Be nice but tell this guy where its at.

don't be scared David, why don't you enlighten me.

Well the best preamplifier made by many accounts is the Conrad-Johnson ART, at $20,000. That is probably the most likely to not harm the signal at all. The other option is that perhaps you could use a switching device to switch between the Wadia straight into the amp and the tuner through its own preamp into the amp. A switching device is a lot simpler than a preamp so it should be easier to make it sonically unobtrusive. I do not know if one is made but a company like McCromack might just custome make on for you. The other thing that occurs to me is that there is a home theatre processor loop on the Adcom GTP-750 preamp (which is incredibly good) that you can kick in that takes the signal in and pipes it straight to the output bypassing the volume control. It is intended for home theatre processors but there is no reason you can't do it with a CD player. In fact, now that I have thought of that, I might hook mine up like that ...

Thanks for the ideas Nhorton, I think the processor loop sounds like a great idea.