Migration to Seperates

Jimmy, using an integrated amp behind a dedicated pre-amp is not the way to truly get an idea of how seperates will sound. Why? your nice clean signal from the pre-amp will suffer deterioration from exposing it to the workings of an integrated amp. Integrated amps, as great as they are, tend to affect seperation to a degree. In order for you to truly "audition" seperates, you need a single dual mono amplifier, dedicated only to processing the signal coming out of your dedicated 2 channel pre-amp.

Good luck!

Running a tube preamp into the amp section of your integrated should give you a taste of what a tube preamp might do, even if, as Judsauce points out, it might not show you how good separates can be.

To do this, connect the tube preamp to the MAIN AMP-IN input; do not connect it to a line-level input like CD or AUX, as these are intended for sources only.

Jusdsauce - Could you tell me more about what you mean regarding seperation? Do you mean that giving similar quality seperates that I could expect more precise channel separation? THX!

Johnbender - I did notice that on my integrated there are removable jumpers connecting the pre and power sections of the integrated. It sounds like this means that by removing the jumpers I can seperate the two sections and try paring it with a pre or a power. Is that right?
Thanks again to you both.