Separates over time, or Integrated now?

Friend

First and foremost I applaud you for examining this topic before wasting money overtime by going through different pieces.  Separates are going to give you the edge during times you want to critically listen and/or turn the volume up.  This will only be realized through direct comparison.  If you listen at low volume most of the time - you can get away with a well built Integrated.

Both will sound great; but in my opinion separates are the way to go.  Purchasing piece by piece is fine as funds permit.  McIntosh makes great gear - so you will be fine there, but you will have to determine whether it will be Solid State or Vacuum Tubes.

X5 does not have Main-In. If you're instead feeding the C2800 into one of the X5's regular line inputs, you'll be cascading two preamps, which is generally not ideal because it adds unnecessary gain stages and another volume control.  Nothing and no one would stop you from doing that but it is just not ideal.  Synergy between them might be another concern.

You might consider a 1-2 year used MC462.  Fair price in the market is around $7,500 - $8,500 based on what I have seen.

Whether or not you should go with separates now or later vs an integrated amp (or whatever combination) now or later, all simply broils down to you’re needs, desires and budget, which only you can figure that out for yourself.  However, I would suggest that if you have a larger space and larger speakers, I would definitely work toward getting separates.  Otherwise, there are several extremely high quality, high-end, very powerful, extremely dynamic, exquisite sounding, integrated amps out there that have the ability to make you forget all about the fact that you’re not using separates, even when used to drive large speakers in large spaces.  It’s your choice.  A few years ago, I moved my audio system to a smaller room, so I went from separates to an excellent integrated, and didn't miss a beat.  Happy listening.       

lanx0003

1,990 posts

07-11-2026 at 12:48pm 

X5 does not have Main-In. If you're instead feeding the C2800 into one of the X5's regular line inputs, you'll be cascading two preamps, which is generally not ideal because it adds unnecessary gain stages and another volume control.  Nothing and no one would stop you from doing that but it is just not ideal.  Synergy between them might be another concern.

You might consider a 1-2 year used MC462.  Fair price in the market is around $7,500 - $8,500 based on what I have seen.

Yes, believe Michi X5 has what it calls "HT Bypass" which bypasses the volume/circuitry entirely and passes signal to amp.  Great idea on the used MC462--going to check them out!

Decision update:  I am buying the C2800 now or the MC462 now, the other component in 12 months. 

Really just deciding which to buy first that will be most impactful.  From what I’ve read, replacing the pre-amp functionality with a quality separate is a better choice..