Migration to Seperates

Good to know. My intent was to pick up a used c2200 for now and if I felt like it was an improvement, sell the 6900 and buy a used power amp.
Why?
Good question. Just looking for "more" i guess. And I must confess that I am hooked on the Mac visuals so I wanted to pair a mac pre with a solid state amp from another maker.
If I cant hear the improvement of the pre then it will get re-listed.
But I am new at this and if you feel like I am missing something obvious in my system, please feel free to point it out. The great thing about the used market is that I can try things and if I dont like the results I can get out of them with out much financial damage...

This sounds like a good plan. Please report back after hooking up the tubes. I'm also thinking about adding a tube pre and using the amp section of my integrated (at least until I can afford a new amp), so I'd like to hear your impressions.

Will do! Thx.

Jimmy,

I think John pretty much highlighted the point I was making:

"Judsause means, and it's also why so many audiophiles prefer separates, because separates completely isolate the components (which integrated don't do), thus providing better sonic performance."

First of all, I didn't realize that you could bypass the pre-amp section of your integrated. And I assumed that you were going straight from your pre-amp to a line level input on your integrated. The way you are doing it may work fine.

Getting back to my point; although I am not an engineer, I do have a decent ear (at least I'd like to think so). I remember when I swapped out my Krell KAV300i integrated amp and went the way of seperates, I was totally blown away by the increased level of focus, seperation, and slam. It is in my opinion that, with seperates, the signal passes through less hardware and is isolated and sheilded far better than an integrated amp. I'm not at all knocking integrated amps. It's just simple physics, it is performing many tasks in one box which is bound to affect the presentation. It's a trade off that may or may not matter, all depending on one's taste.

I would urge you, though, if you can; swap out your integrated amp and slip in a dedicated two channel amp. I'll bet your ears will notice. If you lived on Long Island, I'd even bring over an amp (I have an extra, just in case; you never know when I could break a speaker terminal screw!!)

Good luck!

Judsauce -
Thanks! I am going to give it a shot. I hope that I get 1/2 the experience that you had! And dont for a minute worry that you offended me by preferring seperatese to integrateds. I am too new at all of this to have any ego tied up in it.
I was a musician growing up and totally engrossed in music. Then I got away from it for about 20 years. So I have a lot of catching up to do.
When I bought the integrated (on this site. really great place.) I couldnt imagine spending the money that good seperates cost but 6 months later, it dosent seem that shocking.
I am going to try components that I can demo via mail order first. I know that NuForce and class d have thier detractors but I had a really great conversation with them and they are sending thier current pre and their current monos for me to demo for 2 weeks for $20. I will try them both together and seperatly with the 2 facets of the mac and see what happens. Then I will send them back and see what else is out there.
If you have any favorites that allow for audition in this manner please let me know. I would like to be able to get the combo used for 6 to 8k.
Again, thanks for the input!