I am not sure I agree with fedreams that its a fad, if it is, then it will cost the manufacturers money. Integrated amps are so much more cost effective. This particularly applies to tube amps, where adding an input selector and volume control may add only a couple of hundred dollars to the price. One issue then becomes the quality of a pre amp section. By definition it will only be passive, but the short signal path should'nt make that a problem,. The qualitor of the potentiometer or resistors in the volume control matters of course and as mentioned earlier, the ability to isolate noisy transformers from the preamp section.
I am not suggesting we should all shift to integrated amps, but that the range and variety of high quality tube and SS units becoming available, make that choice a viable and cost effective one, in even quite high end systems.
I am not suggesting we should all shift to integrated amps, but that the range and variety of high quality tube and SS units becoming available, make that choice a viable and cost effective one, in even quite high end systems.