Migration to Seperates

Regarding your second question, Jimmy: yes, you are right. remove the jumpers, which act as cables between preamp and power amp, and then run a cable from the tube preamp into the amp-in connector on your integrated.

Doing this will will allow you to utilize only the amp section of your integrated. Keep in mind, though, that the preamp section of the integrated will still be "on," but it won't be "engaged," so it won't be part of your signal chain. But since it will be on, it may interfere to some degree with your amplifiers performance, as some would say it already does, by virtue of it being an integrated amplifier. I don't completely understand this idea myself, but I think this is what Judsause means, and it's also why so many audiophiles prefer separates, because separates completely isolate the components (which integrated don't do), thus providing better sonic performance.

That said, I think your integrated is a very good piece (I wish I had it), and I don't really know how much better a separate power amp might sound over that which is in your integrated. But I don't know. Hopefully some others will chime in...

Good to know. My intent was to pick up a used c2200 for now and if I felt like it was an improvement, sell the 6900 and buy a used power amp.
Why?
Good question. Just looking for "more" i guess. And I must confess that I am hooked on the Mac visuals so I wanted to pair a mac pre with a solid state amp from another maker.
If I cant hear the improvement of the pre then it will get re-listed.
But I am new at this and if you feel like I am missing something obvious in my system, please feel free to point it out. The great thing about the used market is that I can try things and if I dont like the results I can get out of them with out much financial damage...

This sounds like a good plan. Please report back after hooking up the tubes. I'm also thinking about adding a tube pre and using the amp section of my integrated (at least until I can afford a new amp), so I'd like to hear your impressions.

Will do! Thx.

Jimmy,

I think John pretty much highlighted the point I was making:

"Judsause means, and it's also why so many audiophiles prefer separates, because separates completely isolate the components (which integrated don't do), thus providing better sonic performance."

First of all, I didn't realize that you could bypass the pre-amp section of your integrated. And I assumed that you were going straight from your pre-amp to a line level input on your integrated. The way you are doing it may work fine.

Getting back to my point; although I am not an engineer, I do have a decent ear (at least I'd like to think so). I remember when I swapped out my Krell KAV300i integrated amp and went the way of seperates, I was totally blown away by the increased level of focus, seperation, and slam. It is in my opinion that, with seperates, the signal passes through less hardware and is isolated and sheilded far better than an integrated amp. I'm not at all knocking integrated amps. It's just simple physics, it is performing many tasks in one box which is bound to affect the presentation. It's a trade off that may or may not matter, all depending on one's taste.

I would urge you, though, if you can; swap out your integrated amp and slip in a dedicated two channel amp. I'll bet your ears will notice. If you lived on Long Island, I'd even bring over an amp (I have an extra, just in case; you never know when I could break a speaker terminal screw!!)

Good luck!