my sense is that a direct connect signal is touched as little as possible. In order to make multiroom available you’d have to route the signals through a lot more hoops as opposed to shortest/simplest path.
IF the transformers primary function is to be a preamp I’d agree that if you can have only one or the other then the direct connection is best. But i see the preamp use case as secondary. It just does not have the number of inputs needed to make it viable in that market (Axiom knows and markets it this way). I do see it as a step toward a consumer preamp though and it’s possible to switch between a direct connection and synced. Note: You can not have both at the Same time as you need to time align the audio with the other systems to sync it. This require you to delay the signal at the source so it come out at the same time as the others.
IMO the transformers primary use is to stream media from the net, digital storage device, and to/from another systems. A major function of that is to sync all the audio so it plays at the same time. In order to do that one has to covert the analog in to digital. On the system that’s playing, the audio needs to be routed through the Transformer.
To use my setup as an example: The output of the transformer runs into my prepro’s aux port which is set to play on my main system in the family room. The input of the the transformer is connected to the Zone2 output which is set to phono so I can play an album. I have another transformer synced to the first which plays throughout the whole house. I should be able to leave the family room and have seamlessly synced music (off my turntable) as I walk though the house.