user poll on seperates vs integrated

My very first HiFi was a Marantz 1060 and Large Advents, a Philips 212 and B&O SP-12 cart. Since then I've had a bunch of separates, 150W/ch HK Citation 16, 40W/ch MC240. This time around I went with a Marantz PM7000N Integrated driving LS50s , now  MA Silver 300-7 and a VPI Prime w/Hana SH..

If I were to upgrade, My next move would be a McIntosh MA-252 Hybrid Tube, above that, a Levinson 5802 or 5805 with a possibility of a Luxman 509. And I still haven't touched $1OK, and I haven't blown a European vacation on interconnects. 

So if none of the above float your boat, and you gotta have separates, I'd start with Parasound, maybe NAD, and from there it's a 3-Way between your discretionary income, marital considerations, and how much fiddling around you want to do with components and cables. 

For me, there's just too much value in integrated amps, and at the end of the day, I just want to listen to some music, maybe spin some vinyl.

A voice here in favor of integrated amps. Fewer boxes, less cabling, space efficient and as a sound quality matter…the difference is negligible at best. There are so many external variables (room, power, cables, source, etc) that I believe it’s a decision of convenience over SQ.

And if you later feel the need to spend money, with the flip of a switch you can separate power from preamp and experiment to your hearts content.

I recently moved from separates to an integrated amp (all in 1 actually) and this was a nice step forward.   More detail and better dynamics.  Awesome.  For  less than half the cost. 

ha, i stepped away for an hour and the tide of opinion has turned completely the other direction in favor of integrated amps!  i love it.  honestly i know there's no right answer, its nice to hear what everyone's personal experience has been though.

the only thing i currently have that is separate from the amp is the parasound jc3+ phono which i picked up recently as a dealer open box deal.  i can say that there has been an immediate and distinct improvement vs simply using the onboard phono, much more detailed and more of a feeling of 3-dimentionality, players occupying distinct locations vs the music all sort of compressed together if that makes sense. 

it was the experience of adding this separate component to the system that got me thinking about this question in the first place, wondering if i wouldn't find a similar improvement in splitting up the pre and power amp the way i did with adding the external phono.

Absolutely love the idea of integrateds but even the more expensive ones seem to have been handily outperformed by even modest separates (in my system ). I wish it were not so. Some of the integrateds that people rave about are beyond my reach financially.

This is even before discussing the typical quality of their integrated phono amps…if they even have them.

The first BAT 300 (with 6922s) was the best I’ve ever heard.  If I’m not mistaken, it’s current equivalent is about 12k…you can buy some nice separates with that!

Bottom Line: I vote Separates!