Okay, I get it, even though I don't post a lot on here. It seems to me that most people here are (obviously) primarily headphone people, and generally single source digital listeners. I also get a general sense that few are long time "audiophiles" or people with full multi-source speaker based systems. It might come as a surprise to many of you, but some of us who have been in this hobby a long time, who have a dedicated room, a full speaker based system, and listen equally fondly to both analog and digital, use headphones in our systems too. A preamp in a system like that has to be able to feed either the speakers or the headphone amp without interfering with the other. We aren't going to compromise our systems with kludge to work around a function that is missing.
The surprising part to me is that both Mike and Jason come from a long history of quality speaker based audio, and you would think that in making a preamp, as a company that makes really good headphone amps, they would want to accommodate listeners who want to play through their speakers sometime, or switch easily to use their headphones other times. As much as I have mentioned how much I like the Burson Conductor Virtuoso as a preamp, it generally doesn't get use in my system. Not because I find other DACs better (I can feed other DACs into one of its line level inputs) but that its otherwise highly regarding headphone amp doesn't mate up with the 600 ohm headphones I prefer. The Schiit Valhalla works and sounds much better. I just can't hook it up when the Burson is in the system. I mostly use a homemade DIY passive line stage, which lets me switch between two inputs (usually a phono preamp and a DAC) and also between two outputs, a variable out to the power amp, and a fixed level to the headphone amp. For about $100 in parts it works great. Channel Islands Audio makes a similar device that looks a lot nicer for about $300.
I would like to find an active line stage, and due to the focus on lower priced, high-value gear I write about, one that isn't crazy expensive, that has the sound quality I want, with the functionality I need (and a remote!. I was hoping the Schiit Line Stages would fit the bill.