Integrated Amps vs. Separates.

After much research, IMO, in the $3,000 price range, Integrated is definitely the way to go. Or else possibly used separates. My recent short list looked a LOT like Trelja's list above. I wound up getting a new Cary sli80 'signature'. There is no "compromise" when buying an integrated these days in that pricerange. All those amps mentioned above are wonderful pieces. No, you can't upgrade the pre, etc..., but the facts of perfectly matched impedance, 1 power cord, no interconnects,.. short signal path etc, are good things to remember. Also, these amp designers nowadays know how to arrange things, there's no reason a well designed integrated won't have as good of a soundstage etc as separates. These are old prejudices and they stem from the fact that for so many years, until recently, integrateds WERE 'budget'/compromised units. Not any more. There's actually a lot of positives to integrateds, and there are some negatives to separates. Now, I'm not going to make any sort of blanket statement in either direction, BUT, it is my opinion that separates actually have to cost more to sound as good as one of the integrateds listed above. In this 'golden age' of integrateds, if you go with separates, you just wind up paying more money for the luxury of swapping out your pre, fooling with expensive wires, etc.

it is somewhat of a grey area. Before I bought my Cary int., I was looking at used separates, ( BAT vk60, VAC pa100/100, VTL monoblocks, Music Reference RM200, and many other amps I've forgotten about, w/ possibly Blue Circle 21, VTL 2.5, BAT 3i, etc.) These used separates were in the same ballpark as the new integrateds I was looking into. I wound up getting what I did because of a great price break, but I decided in the end that there really is no black & white definitive 'better' option, although I do "lean" towards thinking that the great int.s ARE better in the same pricerange because of the positives that I and others have brought up earlier in this thread. Of course I'll never know until I go through some sort of rigorous time consuming A/B which is completely out of the question, unless one of you guys with nice separates in the $3K range wants to bring your equipment down here to St Thomas for a week or so.

I suppose that in general, most separates are better than most integrateds. BUT, there are pros & cons to both, and my opinion lately is that there are some great integrateds out there that are as good as great separates. With integrateds you don't have to worry about the cost of interconnects, which are very expensive and do affect the sound. (And possibly power cords too, but I havn't gone that far over the deep end yet.) Also, there's no reason nowadays why an integrated cannot be designed with considerations for separation of the pre/power componants. (Although completely seperate power supplies etc is a good thing of course). And the manufacturer (hopefully) gets the perfect match between the two, which can be trouble when you're going for separates. I recently went through an upgrade,looking for amplification ~$3K, and finally decided on finding a nice integrated (tubes). My short list had units like the VAC Avatar, Bel Canto SETi40, ( both are Stereophile class "A" if that means anything)... I wound up buying a Cary sli80, and am VERY happy with it.