Thanks for your reply wspohn,
Your comment "whatever you have will no longer be state of the art" is not the issue here. Owning "state of the art" is not a priority, good sound is, and I have heard many "state of the art" units (amps, preamps, whatever) that were state of the art but really did not sound very good. Probably because of component mismatch, the no.1 culprit most of the time.
About the example you mention of your Classé with twin phono boards on board not being good as separate units, well it is all subjective of course.
Having owned Classé gear for a short time before bringing in the norma integrated, I can assure you that, to my ears at least, the norma is much more refined and overall much more transparent and harmonically rich. It is just a better machine, even though the Classe of course is nice too.
And if the sound of an integrated, or even separates don’t rock your boat, it won’t matter if you put an on-board phono card or go with an external box.
And by the way, I am not a fan of updates. Some of my past purchases have actually been downgrades ! It all depends on what your motivations are.
Your comment "whatever you have will no longer be state of the art" is not the issue here. Owning "state of the art" is not a priority, good sound is, and I have heard many "state of the art" units (amps, preamps, whatever) that were state of the art but really did not sound very good. Probably because of component mismatch, the no.1 culprit most of the time.
About the example you mention of your Classé with twin phono boards on board not being good as separate units, well it is all subjective of course.
Having owned Classé gear for a short time before bringing in the norma integrated, I can assure you that, to my ears at least, the norma is much more refined and overall much more transparent and harmonically rich. It is just a better machine, even though the Classe of course is nice too.
And if the sound of an integrated, or even separates don’t rock your boat, it won’t matter if you put an on-board phono card or go with an external box.
And by the way, I am not a fan of updates. Some of my past purchases have actually been downgrades ! It all depends on what your motivations are.