Respectable Integrateds

[esldude]

One of the very best purchases I have ever made was a Tact unit that had digital and analog inputs.  Integrated power amp and full digital functions with room correction built in.  The DA conversion was actually done only at the power amp output stage.  It did everything and so well with such low distortion, transparency and functionality in one box it was a revelation.  Keeping everything digital as long as possible is THE way to good results.  

 

Lyngdorf and Tact were the same outfit at one time before having a difference of opinion.  Tact is no more.  Lyngdorf however is using mostly those same ideas.  If it fits your budget, you'll likely not find it easy to do better.  Don't listen to dynosaurs like Gutb.   Do everything digitally as far along as possible and do the conversion to analog as near the end as possible.  If you have analog sources, there are a legion of affordable very high performance AD converters in the pro audio world you can add for that functionality.  

[esldude]

27 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

Quick research into the topic shows the opposite.

 

"Integrated can be just as good or better than separate" is a truism, but a meaningless one. Audio gear exists in reality, not in rhetoric. In the reality of design contradictions placed on designers trying to bring gear to market, integrated is a trade-off in the favor of cost. Everyone here perfectly understands this, but some of you guys are saddled with the need for me to be wrong.

The guy with all the answers.  Too bad they are overwhelmingly the wrong answers.  But answers he has.  Definitive, authoritative, confident, and usually wrong.  

[esldude]

On 1/3/2018 at 11:49 PM, Rexp said:

It seems to me that amplifier technology is about to change, even doyens of pre amp techology, Conrad Johnson are releasing integrated amps with passive pre amp stages :http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/conrad-johnson-cav-45-integrated-amplifier/

 

 

I owned a CJ PV5 preamp and MV50 power amp years back.  Both delightful pieces of gear.  I used the MV50 eventually with a home built passive preamp because it bested the PV5 as a preamp.  I kept the PV5 for the excellent phono stage it had however. Had it until I divested myself of LP gear altogether.  

 

The MV50 was replaced by a VTL 75/75 which spent several years playing my Quad ESL63 speakers.  

 

My already stated opinion on all this is keep it all digital as far as possible into the playback chain, and no reason integrateds need take a back seat to separates.