After years of separates, I'm going integrated. Anyone else do the same?

@mapman 

Dark Horse is my favorite George album.

@voodoolounge yes very underrated.  That and George Harrison are two of my favs. 

I think it depends on your system spend and what you care about. 

For me I care about one thing a stereo system so amp, signal conditioner, preamp, DAC, media server and good speakers.  I am in process of upgrading now and think I will select the Roon Server.  Though vinyl has some great attributes once you play an album a few times you have degradation of the quality not to mention record player are not fans of sound/vibrations.

The stereo store I used to go to, prior to going out of business, always tried to sell you on the most expensive equipment.  They convinced me to abandon my technical experience and just listen.  I think many people convince themselves that a high price mean better, I did.

Years later I needed work done on my amp, Levinson 331, expensive at the time I bought it.  The technician I went to was the same tech at the previous store and he said "the sales people will always sell you on a more expensive part that is not always better."  Since I like the sound of my Levinson he suggested to look at Parasound JC-5.  20+ years after I bought the Levinson the Parasound with 3.5X more power, and the spec's is a little more than I paid!  Probably could have bought Parasounds JC-1 mono blocks for less than the 331.

This time I am reading the reviews but only focusing on the technical stuff not how the listener perceived the sound, that's too subjective.  I'm spending a lot more time investigating/researching room, amp, DAC, speaker performance. 

I also was sold on B&W 801's and Wilson WATT Puppies.  I have the 802's and like them but after reading about Vandersteen's, link below, I was impressed with the design.  Most speaker's are not phase correct which means the woofer maybe pushing air while the midrange is pulling air.  If all frequencies are +/- a few dB's you may not be able to hear this but it should matter.  I'm an aerospace engineer, not practicing anymore but still cling to technical solutions.  This along with other designs/ solutions by Richard Vandersteen make sense to me (no I don't work with Vandersteen.  In my opinion many of his thoughts / designs are ahead of there times.)  Many speakers are slightly bright which draws your attention to them.  In my opinion Wilson's and B&W's are slightly bright, and that is what drew me to them and still does!  But if I go by technical performance only then I see some deficiencies.  You need to make up your own mind. 

Currently my system is divided into 26% speaker, 26% amp, 26% preamp/DAC, 5% CD player, the rest is interconnects, speaker cable, and signal conditioning.  I plan on changing that mixture to 35% speaker, 18% amp, 23% pre/DAC, 10% signal conditioning, 4% media server and 9% interconnects and speaker cables.  I am focusing on the weakest link, the speakers, which has the most error first.

SoundStage-Richard-Vandersteen.pdf (troelsgravesen.dk) 

Also love that particular video.  It’s a lot of fun.  Also love this one which is simply joyous:

I have a hegel h160 and bought a Keces E40 and a topping D70s. All drive all my speakers fine. Trying to decide to either step up my speakers or go with a small but quality speaker and see if the little amp will drive it as well.  May sell the Hegel or may keep it. But size wise, and weight wise, the Keces and Topping combo is nice.  Considering a variety of speakers up to 2K or so.  Just want a nice sounding system for moderate volumes with less clutter too.

If one isn't chasing that last bit of perfection, whatever they think it may be, it can be done with great satisfaction.