Best Preamp - NO preamp... (?)

Yep @georgehifi ... No one knows, but I doubt it, as Paul McGowan is one of the rare, brutally honest, no BS guys I've had the pleasure of knowing in this business. He was not ashamed to admit in the PS Audio forums, that a $10 Chinese made Amazon HDMI cable bettered his $400 PS Audio silver I2S cable. I bought that cable, and he was right... I'm still using it today.
And we need to remember that their setup is not the same as mine.
They tested the BHK preamp driving their solid state BHK power amps.
I use a flea-power Yamamoto A08S SET tube amplifier, which might happen to be a better match for the direct output of the DSD DAC than a solid state amp. 
It could also be that my speakers, a set of $6K Zu Audio Druids Mk V, don't reveal what the $50K Infinity IRS-V do (or the other way around?).
And yet... it might be the $$$, or just him giving ultimate respect for Mr. Bascom H. King. :-)

The $6K PS Audio BHK signature was the only one that came close to having no preamp at all, but still a clear second best.

Still in your own words, with the same source it came a clear second to going direct. With that $6k saving, you could throw that at the source, imagine what you’d have then ???

Cheers George