What sounds best integrated or separates?

You see I would shop around on agon for a piece that I need however I dont have much knowledge about what brands are considered good, all I know is the musical fidelity, mcintosh, cary, jolida, Van Alstine and a few others :(

Well fortunately for you, there is no deadline to make a decision. Take your time, search the archives, and have fun. The journey is the adventure.

Jmcgrogan2, I agree, the journey IS the adventure...here is a short observation: I bought a brand new Krell 300i integrated amp a few years ago. I loved it! It's a great amp. Then I bought pair of Dunlavy SC3's. Great speakers. I ended up buying a Krell KAV250a amp and snooped around for a "entry level" separate pre-amp. At the time Stereophile was recommending the now discontinued Adcom GFP-750. I bought it, hooked it up with some nice cables and, BAM, what a difference; more definition, separation, authority, and slam. The 300i was great. But I was amazed at the difference by changing over to the dedicated ciruitry of the separate pre-amp. It's almost 8 years later and I still have the same set-up. You can get great deals on used pre-amps. And the Adcom GFP 750 still comes up often for sale these days.
Good Luck.

I'm with David12 completely.

A simplified and budget preamplifier mated with good power amplifier very often can outperform integrated amps for the same price range.

Marankanetz; I disagree.

Assuming material, design integrity, etc. Are consistent between the two. Integrated will always sound better. Think about it...no extra cables...short signal path, etc...