Integrated vs. Separates

DaveyF · Feb 18, 2016

Today, there are some excellent integrated amps on the market. The Dartzeel and the new Jeff Rowland Daemon come to mind. However, I think that these pieces and others that portend to be high end still seem to have a certain 'hump' to get over. That 'hump' is the fact that most a'philes, including myself, believe that a great pair of separates still sound better. This really should not be the case in theory....the integrated can/ could just as easily encompass of all the same parts and quality as the greatest separates, and yet it can enjoy far shorter signal paths and do away with the connection that is required between amp and preamp....IOW...the interconnect cable. So, why is it that the integrated amp is still not of the very first category as to SQ and is still considered as the 'step child' in audio...??
Perhaps, one of the designers/manufacturer's can make an integrated that will best all separates, question is why have so few even tried and secondly why has this not happened yet?

Thoughts?

Rodney Gold · Feb 18, 2016

I chose to go with a Devialet..avoiding all the angst of a streamer , pre , dac , assorted cables etc.
Yes.. you cant fiddle as much .. but I choose to fiddle where my efforts produce the biggest impact.. room , bass management and DRC

Not as impressive as a stack tho.. a lot of my pals feel more boxes = better audiophile credentials ..?

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 18, 2016

DaveyF said:
Today, there are some excellent integrated amps on the market. The Dartzeel and the new Jeff Rowland Daemon come to mind. However, I think that these pieces and others that portend to be high end still seem to have a certain 'hump' to get over. That 'hump' is the fact that most a'philes, including myself, believe that a great pair of separates still sound better. This really should not be the case in theory....the integrated can/ could just as easily encompass of all the same parts and quality as the greatest separates, and yet it can enjoy far shorter signal paths and do away with the connection that is required between amp and preamp....IOW...the interconnect cable. So, why is it that the integrated amp is still not of the very first category as to SQ and is still considered as the 'step child' in audio...??
Perhaps, one of the designers/manufacturer's can make an integrated that will best all separates, question is why have so few even tried and secondly why has this not happened yet?

Thoughts?

When it comes to "besting" all separates, as we all know, it's subjective, and judgement is influence by many things. When it comes to objective criteria, available metrics, I suspect the best integrateds equalled separates long ago.

Tim

jasbirnandra · Feb 18, 2016

As rightly said by Tim its a very subjective matter on a holiday to Singapore heard a lot of gear the FM acoustics,Solution,MBL,and some tube gear all PRE and Power but ultimately when I was home I liked the Dart Int.more.

DaveyF · Feb 18, 2016

Phelonious Ponk said:
When it comes to "besting" all separates, as we all know, it's subjective, and judgement is influence by many things. When it comes to objective criteria, available metrics, I suspect the best integrateds equalled separates long ago.

Tim

Tim. I guess the SQ of our systems is 'subjective'. Question is--should that really be the case and always so. I would suspect ( highly suspect) that all of us can hear the difference between a 'live' piano and a reproduced piano. Hypothetically, there should come a period in time when that vast gulf of difference in sound really won't be so vast at all ( or won't exist at all!) . Therefore, the subjective essentially becomes less so. Is it not our goal in this hobby to continually to try and shrink that gulf?? Leading to a point wherein the reproduced is indistinguishable from the 'real'.....
and for those of us who think we are there now...I don't think we are really that close at all.

Gregadd · Feb 20, 2016

There was a time that the best preamp manufacturers and the best amp manufacturers were usually different. Add to that there is no need for a phono section. Most of the technology either already was in or has entered the public domain. That means if you have an all digital front end there is no need for a seaprate preamp. even if you have vinyl you can obtain an outboard phono section. About the onlly downside I can think of for an integrated amp is a shared power supply.

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 20, 2016

DaveyF said:
Tim. I guess the SQ of our systems is 'subjective'. Question is--should that really be the case and always so. I would suspect ( highly suspect) that all of us can hear the difference between a 'live' piano and a reproduced piano. Hypothetically, there should come a period in time when that vast gulf of difference in sound really won't be so vast at all ( or won't exist at all!) . Therefore, the subjective essentially becomes less so. Is it not our goal in this hobby to continually to try and shrink that gulf?? Leading to a point wherein the reproduced is indistinguishable from the 'real'.....
and for those of us who think we are there now...I don't think we are really that close at all.

We would agree on how close we are to to reproducing "real." We may disagree substantially on what is creating that gap.

Tim

jeromelang · Feb 20, 2016

It makes sense, if the power amp is fed by an enormous transformer inside its chassis, then all the sensitive electronics in the pre amp needs to be separated by ample physical distance in order not to be affected.

Those who are already placing your pre amp at some distances from the power amp(s), try putting a chunky hunk of metal next to your pre (without actually touching it) and listen to the results before and after....

rbbert · Feb 20, 2016

In modern integrated amps without built-in phono sections, there is usually not much to the "pre-amp" section except a source selector, often no extra gain stage at all, so I don't know that some of these suggestions (opinions) are relevant.

stehno · Mar 10, 2016

DaveyF said:
Today, there are some excellent integrated amps on the market. The Dartzeel and the new Jeff Rowland Daemon come to mind. However, I think that these pieces and others that portend to be high end still seem to have a certain 'hump' to get over. That 'hump' is the fact that most a'philes, including myself, believe that a great pair of separates still sound better. This really should not be the case in theory....the integrated can/ could just as easily encompass of all the same parts and quality as the greatest separates, and yet it can enjoy far shorter signal paths and do away with the connection that is required between amp and preamp....IOW...the interconnect cable. So, why is it that the integrated amp is still not of the very first category as to SQ and is still considered as the 'step child' in audio...??
Perhaps, one of the designers/manufacturer's can make an integrated that will best all separates, question is why have so few even tried and secondly why has this not happened yet?

Thoughts?

Audio enthusiasts many times are conditioned to think a certain way and will not deviate from that way. Period.

For some-to-many who've gone the integrated route with a sufficient or better designed integrated amp, they have no intention of going back to separates.

Theoretically, it stands to reason that given the same designer and talents an integrated amp's SQ should sound at least as good as separate amp and pre. Less is more when it comes to performance, right?

But also theoretically, it stands to reason that given near identical designs, the integrated amp's SQ should easily surpass that of separates. If for no other reason than having one less component having to deal with noisy AC, one less power supply inducing internally-generated vibrations, and one less chassis capturing and trapping air-borne and internally-generated vibrations.

FrantzM · Mar 10, 2016

Hi

High End Audio started in an empirical, overbuilt fashion. Designers would not go for "good enough" or "sufficient for the task": if a 500 VA Power transformer was good enough then they would use a 5 KVA and the market would react favorably.. There is some validity the approach as their were and continue to be some real sonic benefit associated with overbuilding things. There is a limit but the audiophiles do not seem to think there is one... And so it became a game of more boxes , "optimized" for a purpose. SO the integrated amp exploded into an amp and preamp. Then the preamplifier which up to then had a Phono Stage became a Line Stage sans phono stage, thus the audiophile had to add a phono stage.. in the meantimes, the stereo amphas exploded iinto 2 (and sometimes 4,like the Jadis JA-800) : the bizarrely named "monoblock", then the preamp/ err Line Stage came in two boxes one for the Power supply and the other for the line stage and another box again for the Phono Stage.. Sometime the preamp is mono and with a power supply so 4 boxes just for the Line Stage and of course the same approach could be applied to the phono stage too thus again more boxes... How would a single box complete with that, in the mind of the audiophile? The trend continue to DAC where some expensive DACs come in 3 or more boxes.. One of those boxes housing a Greek-prefixed "clock" that could make a world of a difference for some... with the proper cable .. .. Since this is a Luxury market, it is a matter of perception... For most audiophiles more boxes equal better sound .. And the more boxes approach is usually reserved for the TOL or SOTA products . The market spoke and it was heard by the designers. I do believe that the simplicity of the integrated approach could provide real sonic gains but if the market doesn't demand why would the designers bother?

bonzo75 · Mar 10, 2016

Also audiophiles like to play, and integrateds restrict box swapping - which is why I would never get one, like to try different stuff.

stephen_volker · Mar 10, 2016

Based on my experiences, there are serious positives to each. With an integrated you have, most likely you have all you need. If you get a good one, it will sound good.

Separates are a different game completely.

With separates you can listen to several pieces to taylor the sound to your liking. You have a tube pre and tube preamplifier and want a less tubey sound, you can switch the amps for SS. An integrated doesn't give this flexibility. For me, the biggest deal is that if you have a bunch of separates, it is much easier to trade up or liquidate. If I see a new setup I want to try, I probably won't want to get rid of my entire system to do so.

DaveC · Mar 10, 2016

In the past it was best to have a preamp to do switching, volume and voltage gain along with an amplifier with high input sensitivity and a source with lower output voltage. This makes sense to me.

Now, we have 2V sources and amps with 30+ dB gain and < 2V input sensitivities. This means a preamp with gain is actually a detriment and the signal needs to be attenuated a lot to achieve low enough listening levels, especially with speakers with higher sensitivity used with powerful amps.

The speaker I'm working on can play at extremely high volumes yet is very efficient, so for normal listening levels the attenuation required is in the 40-50 dB range, and in this case the issue with using a separate preamp is the IC cable from pre > amp carries signals as low as .02V and sometimes less. In contrast, a system I made for driving low-power single drivers incorporates a preamp with 20 dB gain a power buffer amplifier with slightly negative gain. This results in the voltage from pre > amp being much higher than in the previous system and not surprisingly this system has no noticeable noise whatsoever while the first one has typical low levels of hiss.

So, given a 2V source imo an integrated amp makes much more sense. The issue is the separates are often built to higher quality and the input/preamp section of integrated amps is usually not as good as a dedicated preamp with it's own power supply. However, if input/pre section of an integrated is given a good design and a power supply isolated from the power section well enough or even it's own supply, then I think an integrated amp has potential to be better.

Johnny Vinyl · Mar 10, 2016

Here's my brief take on this, but remember I'm writing as the more average consumer or entry-level audiophile as compared to many members here who can enjoy SOTA equipment.

I honestly don't think there is a definitive answer to this as I've heard both and both were sometimes better sounding to me than the other. This has usually happened with the more lower-priced components, but as you move up the quality scale that difference becomes smaller, although that is certainly dependent on the manufacturer as well. The manufacturers I'm most familiar with are Marantz Reference, McIntosh and Simaudio. I think these three companies make excellent separates and integrateds and I've had a difficult time trying to figure out what sounds better to me on several occasions. This is not from my home, but either from a dealer demo or a show, so by no means ideal conditions for a proper assessment.

One thing I've learned from being a member here is that "current" plays a huge factor in attaining the most quiet background one can get. I suppose therefore that serious audiophiles are thereby hugely attracted to separate components to try and achieve such a result. If I had the space, the financial wherewithal and the inclination to delve that deeply into audiophilia I would too, because it does make sense. However, I'm not convinced yet that making such a leap for what I think sometimes is limited gain, it is a worthwhile choice. Not having the experience of having lived with SOTA gear it is probably true that my ears are not sufficiently trained to hear that last 5% or so of an improvement. Fair enough.

Because I'm not a tinkerer and am easily pleased (haha) an integrated amplifier is my component of choice. I'm happy living without the last 5%.

However your choice I hope that you're pleased with it and enjoy the music. Happy listening!

stehno · Mar 10, 2016

Johnny Vinyl said:
One thing I've learned from being a member here is that "current" plays a huge factor in attaining the most quiet background one can get.

Interesting. Are you saying that you've learned that high-current drawing amps play a HUGE factor in attaining the most quiet background? Or low current drawing amps?

Or are you saying attaining the most quiet background has to do with the quality of current?

Also curious who in this forum taught this to you.

rbbert · Mar 10, 2016

Given the simplicity of the "preamp" section in most of today's integrated amps from companies with audiophile pretentions, I doubt there is a quality drop compared to separates in the same part of the company's range. There are few if any cases, though, where an integrated makes use of the upper echelons of a company's amplifier models.

KeithR · Mar 10, 2016

my Dart integrated has an active preamp section indeed with its own transformer (set on top of the power amp's version) - i've often wondered if that's why it sounds so good.

stehno · Mar 10, 2016

rbbert said:
Given the simplicity of the "preamp" section in most of today's integrated amps from companies with audiophile pretentions, I doubt there is a quality drop compared to separates in the same part of the company's range. There are few if any cases, though, where an integrated makes use of the upper echelons of a company's amplifier models.

Doesn't a manufacturer stand to generate significantly more revenue by keeping the chassis' separate?

fas42 · Mar 10, 2016

All else being equal an integrated will easily best separates - the latter immediately introduces a whole set of weaknesses which will then "colour" the sound; which may be to some people's preference, of course.

Integrated vs. Separates

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