As some of you may remember, a while ago I wrote to the forum regarding direct connection from Vivaldi DAC to power amps hence bypassing the preamp. It has been weeks after weeks and I can’t believe that I am still going on that route. Whether I was going slightly mad or what I have been hearing was true, this had to be also tested by some other ears. First, almost all audiophile friends who recently listened to my system w/o preamp agreed that they also favor the current state of the system with a big margin to previous in terms of resolution, dynamic impact, speed, pinpoint imaging and layering. Some also mentioned, for an audiophile whose main dish is a wide and bold soundstage, then a very good preamplifier might also be considered. I still have doubts on that in case that might create a compromise from the recent benefits listed above (or at least until I try one at my setup and hear with my own ears). To me, certainly the pity is lack of analog. Since I had no intention to live with only one format, at some stage presumably the analog bug inside me will favor a preamp. But that will most probably force me to upgrade the existing analog gear as well since digital really rules here. I used to consider -as many others- Vivaldi setup as extremely expensive including the cable investments one also needs to do. That said for a digital source only audio setup, I strongly believe Vivaldi can be connected to power amps without any hesitation and for many that means a significant saving as one needs to spend serious bucks for a really good preamp to compete and even in that case I presume the differences will be like splitting hairs. So in terms of using practices I came to the conclusion that Vivaldi is not that expensive relative to current pricing in hiend industry, that is interesting but true.