How much do I need to spend to get a preamp that sounds better than no preamp?

Note: The words THE MASTER!! were added to my post after the fact.

I don’t care when it was added. As the "volume control" is always the "Master", just thought I’d drive it home to you.

Clearly you don’t work with active line sections or you would know that.

Of course I do, don’t be ignorant, if you increase the gain of an active stage you increase not just the signal what’s coming in but everything else including noise, rf ,hum any tube or transistor noise is also amplified when you add more gain to an active stage.

Cheers George

Going direct makes it tough with a turntable. 

Pistha,
I listen to cds and Tidal. I'm back to direct no pre but this time bi amped. Awesome. The AI pre adds quite a bit of bottom. 

The oppo volume control operates using 32 bit processing.

@georgehifi 
Yeah, which in a good line stage is basically insignificant. It doesn't hold a candle to the distortion generated by running a gain stage to it's limits. Getting better sound from more gain and less input signal makes perfect sense. It's really obviously, even to an unwashed rube like me.