Of course a single unit can sound better than separates, given that the quality of the single unit is better.
However, what sucks with separates for home theater is many do not support modern formats. I see processors still being sold that are $10K and don’t support HDR nor Atmos.
Also, you want room correction, at least for the subwoofer. For the consumer level, Audyssey (Denon/Marantz) is the best, though I recommend the $20 app as the default target curve sucks. Higher in price gets your Dirac or Anthem’s ARC, but again many of those products don’t support modern formats.
The NAD T777 V3 is $2500 and I believe it supports all the current codecs (not HDMI 2.1 I believe, but I wouldn’t think you’d have use for that). It has Dirac, which is really good.
However, what sucks with separates for home theater is many do not support modern formats. I see processors still being sold that are $10K and don’t support HDR nor Atmos.
Also, you want room correction, at least for the subwoofer. For the consumer level, Audyssey (Denon/Marantz) is the best, though I recommend the $20 app as the default target curve sucks. Higher in price gets your Dirac or Anthem’s ARC, but again many of those products don’t support modern formats.
The NAD T777 V3 is $2500 and I believe it supports all the current codecs (not HDMI 2.1 I believe, but I wouldn’t think you’d have use for that). It has Dirac, which is really good.