Why amps, pre-amps, integrated amps???

"It is difficult to find an integrated which equals the performance of separates."

I would tend to disagree with this as a whole-sale blanket statement.

Integrateds are often overlooked as the 'value' component.

For a given price point, integrated amps can be the better value and performer. For a given price point, separates involve additional costs for separate chassis, power supplies, interconnects, and even power cords.

Take the same amount of money and you could easily step into a 'better' integrated over separates.

So, it depends.....

Why not.

Interviews with audio electronics designers often turn to the importance of power supplies. I've seen this in interviews with James Bongiorno concerning the Ampzilla in the '70s, Paul Gower of PS Audio, and several others.

Transformers vibrate and when you add several to the same chassis you are raising the noise floor or you are compromising performance by requiring amp, pre, phono, and tuner to share the same power supply. If you mount and isolate separate power supplies for each component you have a large unwieldy single component where all power supplies are still sharing a single AC source through a single cord.

I started with a receiver. I graduated to separate tuner, preamp (with phono) and amp. I tried to go back to a receiver (Outlaw RR2150) to my extreme disappointment, went to an integrated with outboard tuner and compact phono, and now have separate tuner, phono, line stage, and power amp, all in full-sized 17"w chassis. The power supplies in the phono and line stages are bigger than what you'd get in a wall wart or PS section mounted in a standard-sized integrated.

It's not for panache or status. I'm interested in one thing: the music coming out of the speakers and how much it emotionally involves me. In that arena, so far in my experience separates win. I'm confident that there are integrateds that could beat my humble stack of separates (e.g., Pass, Krell, AR), but at a price I couldn't afford.

Johnnyb53 has got it right. The power supplies are the big issue- that and the way the grounds are set up. It is very easy to get crosstalk in integrated amps, in a way similar to to the way ground loops occur.

It is possible to build an integrated that gets around this, and if it is done, you will see a separate power transformer for each channel. If you don't see that in the integrated then you will be able to find separates that out-performs it.

I find that the main advantage of separates is the setup of the system. Its to your advantage to keep your speaker cables short- it can have a huge effect on impact and definition. Monoblock amplifiers allow just that, and especially if your preamp can drive long interconnects, you can place the preamp and the front end components in the room where they are least affected by bass, have the best WAF, or are the most convenient.

Integrated amps force you to place the amp between the speakers, often with longer speaker cables which means that even a great integrated may not be able to strut its stuff simply on account of longer speaker cables!

^^^^^

You are talking about separate separates! :-)

Again...just saying "separates" are better that integrateds is meaningless (cuz there are mid to lo fi separates and hi end integrated) - everything matters so it all depends on specifics.

You gotta do your homework and you gotta get your ears on for real listening.

The big fat paint brush doesn't work in audio