In a perfect world, where everything is equal, and for any given amount of money spent by the designer manufacturer, yes. Why? less money on chassis, better control of interfacing, fewer wires.
Now on the real world :-)
Nothing’s every equal. And separates have a cachet that means most designers' time will be spent on separates, if the products are designed for high end hobbyists.
That said i have a prototype integrated amp running right now, in my living room, and its every bit as good as the separates that it replaces, which cost at least 3x as much. Maybe more.
But that’s one of those cases where most of the major things ARE equal - because i made them so.
In terms of sound/dollar, if someone wants to make a better integrated, compared to equally priced separates, its pretty easy to do so, and very hard to do the opposite. Consider that the chassis is the single most expensive part of every component, and the packaging + shipping is sometimes #2.
So this isn’t rocket science.
That said i have found few integrated amps that really perform at the very high end; which is why this prototype exists. And oh, is it ugly!
G
