any current integrated amps in market have great dacs?

My friend directly compared the Technics SU-R1000 to the Boulder 866. He sold the Boulder 866. 

I've listened to the Rotel Michi Integrated amplifier and their mono-amps. In my opinion they're both mediocre.

Gryphon sounds very good, but after a really good friend's recent experience with repair of his Diablo 300 integrated amplifier, I would never purchase Gryphon.

@ricred1 

Did your friend keep the Technics SU R1000 because it has tone controls and more ways to color the sound to his liking? 

ronboco,

He kept the Technics because he preferred the sound. I’ve listened to Boulder several times and I prefer a different sound. It doesn’t matter what my friend or I prefer. He made his choice based on listening to both in his system. I’m happy you love your Boulder 866. I’m curious if you directly compared the 866 to the SU-R1000?

Aesthetix Mimas with optional DAC card. 

Agree that a separate DAC is sonically better for the money.

swede58, I know, I know. I was just surprised that no one mentioned it.

Boulder or Gryphon is a matter of preference, I am not talking about their dacs. 

Gryphon Diablo 300 with DAC has been in my system for a few years now.  The DAC module is fed by a Wolf Audio Alpha 3SX server by USB.  I have compared with external DACs in my system and continue to employ the Gryphon DAC for its performance in my system. Certainly a matter of my preference.

@ricred1 

I have not listened to the SU-R1000 but from reading the absolute sound review it looks like a really high end integrated. Happy listening! 
 

Ron 

Sonnet Morph or Mscaler/Q  >> Michi 3 dac, even Rose150 alone better.  But sound and functionality of Michi excel.

What a great conversation.  I owned the PS audio gain cell dac and I didn't think it was that good.  I've used the PS audio DL3 which was much better.  And I liked the onboard dac of the he PS Audio strata integrated.  I really like that integrated app so even though it's not hooked up at the moment I do enjoy listening to it and can't quite part with it.

I've had the CXA81 too.  Love the sound of that... However it did not appear to have the juice to drive my floor standers as the sound thinned out considerably when comparing between bookshelf and floor stander.

My favorite to date is the electrocompaniet ec6d which I bought second hand.  The integrated DAC on that is super.  I don't feel I need to pair it with an external dac.  

Seems like once you get above two or 3,000 for integrateds The sound largely becomes a matter of what you like.  So it can be tough to say what is actually better.  Kind of like arguing about what color is better.  

hope this helps.

I'd like to chime in on the AVR part of the discussion above.  I'd have to agree as a person who has a little of everything that given the budget, selling price and design parameters that exist with AVR's you can't really touch esp higher end Int Amps and even more so standalone.  Not even close.  BUT!  Some can sound pretty good.  I have the Marantz Cinema 40 and it does a great job of non-top of class decoding.  Just my two-cents.  Doesn't answer audiocanada's question at all though.  lol

“Great DACs” cost more to build. In integrated amps,  DACs quality somewhat generally increases accompanied by increases in price - no free lunch.  

Patrick, your idea is valid but you are a little off regarding cost. Above $15k, I would say, or so, I don't closely follow the prices dynamics.

I think the performance (Integrated Amp with DAC inside) is about the synergy between the DAC implementation and amplifier section. Although having myself separates (DAC and Integrated Amp), I truly believe this.

Another gear I'm curious to test is the Daniel Hertz system or just the Daniel Hertz Maria Integrated Amps. This is the Mark Levinson' brand and it's a new market approach (proposing a complete system - Amp and Speakers). It's expensive but above some point we know that a step up is not a proportional investment but rather an exponential one (a "lot" more money for a "small" step in quality improvement). It's just a matter of deciding if we want to downsize or not, even if it do not mean spending less 😁 - sometimes less is more.

This is a subject matter and all opinions are right, at least for that person.

Have you heard about the latest trend of no DAC at all? Not joking.

Talk about lowering the noise floor. How about the blackest background ever. And apparently, pretty much everyone agrees. Which is hard to believe, Lol.

I have a Lyngdorf tdai 2170 and love it to death. End game. It's sort of the middle child between the two current models. The new ones allow you to stream directly from your phone.

The thing that makes their approach so cool is that it's sort of like a wire with gain, from a practical standpoint. 

I recommend you read some reviews. 

@mbmi who are you referring to, specifically?

@tunefuldude I am doing this tonight after having my modded PeachTree GAN1 on the sidelines for a few months. I was short 1 streamer to get that going. The "DACless" design is incredible but I can see established players being reluctant to make these pieces. Less things to sell.