Cleary there are excellent examples of both designs...with intergrateds really gaining ground in terms of popularity and price/performance....and in real world listening enviroments...that is average size rooms with modern efficient/stable speaker loads...it is no wonder intergrated amps have created a following...with a short,simple,signal path...not much power is really necessary for real world listening...that being said...I own seperates myself for the mix n matching flexibility(tube pre/solid state amp,etc) more so than the perceived gain in audio quality...and in truly hi-end, state of the art, cost is no object audio...seperates are still the componets to be judged(30 k monoblocks,etc)...at any rate...both are capable of truly stellar musical reproduction....and both have merits and potential shortcomings depending on the system in question....
seperates over integrated. Why?
This is a general question, raised by an experience today.I own a Tube Technology Seer pre, and today turned down one of their integrated amps at $700. I'm running home made triode monoblocks through the preamp with Fi Phy and Ear 834p and the preamp's phonos, and One thing audio Quad ESL57's. All these years of gradually changing gear, and thinking about cables, and all the different bits of gear, just buying an integrated sure sounds good right now. The Tube Technology pre's phono stage is up there with the other 2, only being inferior during exhaustive ABing. So whats the fuss? All those cables degrading the signal with seperates, or "it all in together" integrateds vibrating and cross-talking the signal away? I ASK THIS CONFUSEDLY.