Separate components are often high maintenance. They take a lot more tinkering (tweaking) to get at their soul. For some that is the fun of the hobby, for others, it's just too frustrating. You will need proper; vibration control, interconnects, power cords. All of which can add up to more then the components themselves. To learn about the art of tweaking go to www.audiotweakers.com
Upgrade blues
Owned a Naim Nate for many years, sold it for 400 and thought I was upgrading to seperates, big mistake. The Naim, in retrospect clearly was the better piece; live and learn. Any suggestions on avoiding this pitfall, I bought the seperates without auditioning, and was seduced by advertising.