Are the performance of separates worth the price?

My thoughts are that integrated amps and one box cd players tend to represent far better "value" for the money. The cost savings of one chassis (vs. two or more) for the manufacturer are siginificant and passed on to the consumer for the most part (while we don't want to admit it, a fair amount of the retail price on any high end audio component goes to the fit and finish of the chassis, with some exceptions...lamm comes to mind). Second, the elimination of external connectors with hard wired connections also tends to produce sonic benefits. That said, at the (very) top end, separate chassis do have the edge because of the ability to separate the power supplies from the rest of the components, as well eliminating intra-chassis resonances and the like. While few will disagree that separates provide the best sound, integrateds will provide more value. Of course this is my opinion and like all generalizations will not hold to be true all the time.

Ejlif is correct in suggesting a Cd player with volumn control. Unless, of course you need the pre for vinyl. The only problem with most such Cd players is that they don't have an analog passthru for your tuner.

I am only aware of one Cd player that has recently incorporated the anagog passthre and that is the Audio Aero Mark II. You can get an older AA upgraded with a new circuit board and it will also handle analog.

there are some pretty good separates and some pretty good integrateds. I think your own ears will lead you the way that it is best for you.

My ears led me toward separates, but these things sure take up quite a bit of room!

Depending how much are you willing to spend. If over $2K, i would look into used separates. Better value, better sound.

The answer is yes. However, you really did not state enough in your question. Is the amplifier section of the intergrated equavalent to the stand alone amplifier. Check the manufacture's specs. If things like damping factor, power output, slew rate, signal to noise ratio, IM distortion, etc, are similar, then the units will probably preform about the same. Inaddition, if these units are from a quality manufacturer, and well constructed, then the likelyhood that the intergrated amp will offer any comprises in sound quality is low. Most of this is psycological anyway. You probably have always been told that a really high end system has to be separate components. What you have'nt been told is that many 'really' high end systems can sound like poop too. There was another good bit of advise offered here too. If you plan on using only one source, then skip the preamp all together and plug directly in to the amp. You can accomplish this with either an amp that has front panal volume controls....how many high end manufactures are still doing this....or a source that has variable outputs, etc. Furthur, if you are going to use more that one source, but no phono, or tape or recordable CD, etc, you can still do this with a high quality switchable multiple aux input device. If you want to record, you could also plug directly into the recorder (cd, dat, tape, ect).