I, too, use a separate preamp. An integrated preamp and amp would not work as well since I keep my equipment in another room and run long balanced interconnects to my mono amps. I would not want to run speaker wire at that length.
I also am waiting before I spend big bucks on a SSP until such time as things settle down a bit (like waiting for HDMI 9.6 !!) and, like Miles and others, have a large analog library. I can use a much less expensive SSP for home theater (that, by the way, is good enough) but still get great 2 channel sound from my preamp. (I would never use my current SSP as an analog preamp and am not prepared to spend $20,000 for an SSP that lacks the kind of digital room correction I want).
