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


Hello all.
I'm using an Audible Illusions L1 preamp and I think my system sounds better when I remove it from the signal path. Oppo BD105 directly to SMC Audio DNA1 Gold power amp. I have read that there is level of quality you need to hit before there will be an improvement in sound. I can't seem to find what that level is. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Ben
honashagen
Wrong and wrong... again. Sure, you can Drive a Pass Labs amp with single ended signals, but you get less gain, half the power, and ten times the distortion. You'd know that if you read the Su-Sy article. You'd also have known that there are definitely balanced amps out there, to, which is the ONLY way Pass amps with Su-Sy work correctly.

This is what the B1 looks like.
 https://www.passdiy.com/projects/images/content/bbp_1.png
That's not what you've got. That, and the schematic doesn't make sense. P1 isn't the volume control. It balances the voltage reference to the FETs. The volume control is obviously the LDRs that form the divider at the input. I don't understand why you keep posting that.  

Beyond all of that, Nelson didn't invent that topology. It's been used in dozens if not hundreds of input stages in amp and pre-amps for eons. You can find him saying that at Burning Amp 2015 when he discusses the nuances of that complimentary pair. 
I don’t understand why you keep posting that.
Because it was the original balanced power supply direct coupled (matched) complimentry jfet buffer that Nelson designed for the Lightspeed.
Afterwards it became (I believe the cruder) unbalanced supply re-configured capacitor coupled p channel jfet buffer (didn’t need to be matched) for the B1
Once again go away your stalking, also calling my product "thing"? you really need to see someone.

Cheers George
If you play digital, the MSB DAC can drive any amp, using passive analog volume control only. 
Huh.... And all this time i thought you were opposed to gain. Guess you're not.