@whart Well this touches on why I am asking. If I look up most tube amp designs, PP, SE, and a variety of power tubes, the designs usually include the input stage: There is some twin triode doing some initial amplification usually, and discussions of coupling capacitors or transformer coupled etc. This includes guitar amps, too. So, are these all tube integrated amps? Because nobody really calls them that, just "tube amps". But it kind of makes sense, if so. |
Haven’t seen the word resistance yet. Cleaning up the signal so a constant load is presented to the power amp section - allowing it to run in optimal parameters - I thought was the point of a preamp. The input can have varying voltage and resistance, but the power amp doesn’t see any of that. This is a tricky concept since we always talk about the voltage of the source but rarely the resistance. |
I've always viewed Integrated amps as essentially the predecessors to receivers, because we used to use external tuners. I think the inclusion of a pre-amplification stage as a qualifier is debatable as a pre-amplifier typically came just before the power amplifier and did not necessarily include more than one input channel, but in the late 70's we started to see many more pre-amplifiers that served as our connectivity as an integrated amplifier would, sans the main amplification stage.
My definition of an Integrated amp is a power amplifier that allows for switchable connectivity to more than one input. |
@macg19 ....Anytime there's a function added that went beyond a power+volume switch, the complexitie$ begin to toll.... "Integrated"....to self, is what I strive for when I'm or I've a bit more than average looped together..... ...and does what I want to occur without burning Something.... ;) Integrated as the End Product. 👍 |
