Separates allow you a lot more flexibility and greater resolution. They allow you to improve your setup incrementally, which is great on the budget!
In the resolution department as an example, you can keep your speaker cables short by placing the amplifiers right by the speakers. It was this very issue that caused me to look into balanced operation back in the 1980s; at the time it was impractical to place my equipment stand between the speakers so I was running fairly long speaker cables. When I got the balanced line preamp running and then ran short speaker cables, the increase in resolution was dramatic! Since then I have seen and demonstrated this many times.
Integrated amps can be very nice but in a nutshell represent a compromise.
In the resolution department as an example, you can keep your speaker cables short by placing the amplifiers right by the speakers. It was this very issue that caused me to look into balanced operation back in the 1980s; at the time it was impractical to place my equipment stand between the speakers so I was running fairly long speaker cables. When I got the balanced line preamp running and then ran short speaker cables, the increase in resolution was dramatic! Since then I have seen and demonstrated this many times.
Integrated amps can be very nice but in a nutshell represent a compromise.