Migration to Seperates

Jimmy, using an integrated amp behind a dedicated pre-amp is not the way to truly get an idea of how seperates will sound. Why? your nice clean signal from the pre-amp will suffer deterioration from exposing it to the workings of an integrated amp. Integrated amps, as great as they are, tend to affect seperation to a degree. In order for you to truly "audition" seperates, you need a single dual mono amplifier, dedicated only to processing the signal coming out of your dedicated 2 channel pre-amp.

Good luck!

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!

Jimmy,

For 6 to 8k, I would say that the Audiogon world is your oyster! It all boils down to personal taste. And personal taste in this hobby varies widely from individual to individual.

I was also a "budding" musician, and still play feverishly (but not for a living).

I progressed through various two channel configurations and migrated to what I call, a "poor man's hi-end system".

First off, I pumped some serious dough into a pair of Dunlavy SC3's. These are time-aligned, phase coherant speakers that are very revealing, with a sweet spot that is smaller than the width of my head. But they sound heavanly.

They are fed with a budget giant killer pre-amp long discontinued by Adcom (former class A rated on Stereophile): GFP 750. That is feeding a Krell KAV 250 amplifier (250watts@8ohms, 500watts@4ohms). It is Krell's "Audio video line", not the high end line, but you'd never know it.

My Cd player has a tubed front end, and my phono stage is a tube Sonic Frontiers vintage phono pre-amp. So, I get the slam of the solid state world, combined with the warmth of the tubed world, and , in my opinion, it doesn't get any better than this. It took me about ten years to cull it all together, but I am loving it.

You can find used Krell, KRC 2 pre-amps for around 1,200. They are great pre-amps and always sell fast. Classe makes great amps, around 200 watts, at about 4 to 5 years old would cost you around another 1,200 or 1,500. Bryston also makes great amps that you can get great deals on (although some say they are a bit on the bright side, but they have a great warranty deal that is transferrable).

I'd keep that Mac, don't sell it. But there is so much stuff out there that is not that expensive that will fit the performance bill that I urge you not to spend all that cash when you could find an amp and pre-amp for half of that. Although I can't offer a suggestion of an e-retailer that will let your audition, you may be able to research the archives here at A'gon to scope out units to purchase used. And if you don't like them, just keep the packing material, and offer it up to someone else.

Good luck!