Will benefits of a quality channel strip or preamp be lost by using a patch bay or other switching arrangement to hook the preamp into the system?  While it seems ideal to connect the output of the preamp directly into the sound interface (Motu Ultralite) it would be helpful to have a patch bay for various reasons.  Will a splitter or patch bay introduce noise to the clean and quiet signal from a quality preamp? Any recommendations for a quality patch bay that would avoid such problems?