Go to many audio shows that you can. Tampa has 1 in a couple of weeks. I used to go to CES/the show/rmaf and others every year and now just the Tampa show.
Most equipment you will be seeing will be way over your $8000 budget. Your goal is to see if you can hear a difference in setups, doesn’t matter if they are $10k systems or $200k systems. If you can’t hear any difference then I would spend a dime on an integrated and I would look at the Kef LS60 or Kef LS50 wireless 2 setups. These are active systems where all you need is an Ethernet cable and power. You just need a streaming service or Roon and you are done.
If you can’t hear any hear a difference, then I’d still look at the Kef speakers above but I’d also start evaluating as any integrated amps you can. When you go to an audio show and you find something you like, ask for a personal audition which they will give you after the show closes for the day or before it opens the next day. If done that many times and it’s only you in the room. Go to Atlanta and check out a few audio places there.
Besides the sound of an integrated, you need to figure out what features you are looking for in an integrated: dac/phono preamp/streaming capabilities, etc. Not all integrated amps provide these functions and most that do are compromised at best, but maybe they will be good enough for you. How many inputs do you need, balanced inputs, sub outputs, equalizer, dsp, the list goes on.
Unless you have high sensitive speakers, I would look to get as powerful amp as possible within your budget. I had to sell my H360 Hegel because it wasn’t powerful enough for some new speakers, but I got a250 watt separate amp and it had plenty of power for the speakers, same power but the separate amp is 3x the size of the Hegel