Most high(er) end gear does not have tone controls. I think a balance control is an absolute necessity. Some gear has dual volume controls instead of balance controls. I have not had tone controls for at least 15 years. As my equipment and speakers got better the need for tone controls became less. A lot of those integrateds don't have a phono stage. You mentioned vinyl as one of your sources so a phono stage would be important.

Right. I think McIntosh still offers tone controls on their integrateds. Van Alstine has 'em on some of his preamps, but I don't think he makes integrateds. They can be useful on REALLY bad software, but they mess up the soundstage when in the circuit. You can go the DSP route, which is a newer trend, but this introduces new complications, because each individual CD/LP requires its own specific corrections. There is no "one size fits all," except for those products offering different bass curves for room compensation. Even those won't tweak specific discs, unless you want to take the time to re-program the settings every time you put in a new tune. Some folks DO that, but that's a lot of fuss from my perspective.

Welcome!

You arrive at an auspicious time. The age of high quality integrateds is in full bloom!

At almost every budget, there is gear of such quality as to be mind boggling.

It's nice to have a simple set-up, too.

I'm biased by ownership, but the Marantz PM 7200 integrated is a stellar unit at only 499 bucks. It has tone controls and balance, as well, and runs class A up to 25 watts.

There are totally high Hi End integrates in the 2 to 2.5 kilodollar range that would kill mega-buck pre/power systems from just a decade ago.

The audio world is your oyster.

Clue us in as to what your expectations might be and we'll keep helping out.

If you don't mind waiting a couple of months to receive your unit, the new Outlaw receiver might work out real nice for you. $599 and a 30 day home trial.

Yeah, with adding phono and FM, the Outlaw seems perfect!

They were actually demoing it with a turntable at HE 2006, and in a casual display room, it sounded "normal."

That may be a perfect fit!

Mike, don't be put off by the latest alphabet soup -- DSP makes corrections in the digital domain. Since I am an analog man, I'm damned if I'm gonna undo all the good that analog does by converting it to digital, just so I can twirl a few more dials. Buddha is right. Try the Marantz (I didn't know it had tone controls) and others in that price range -- it may sound just as good in your system as $10,000 separates. I honestly thought Roy Hall had one of the top 3 rooms at the show, and he was using sub-$1000 electronics. Just take your time, shop around, go to a few live music events, and gradually make up your mind about the characteristics of music YOU are interested in hearing in YOUR system. Cheers, and keep in touch -- Clifton

Will seeing your name as mike5350 be the giveaway?

You should be buying gear on what your ears tell you. Specs don't really tell you all that much. You want equipment that reproduces the entire frequency spectrum. The most important thing is how the gear reproduces what you can hear. If you can't hear to 20khz it's not all that important. Most of us old folks can't hear a 20khz signal anyway.

Yes it is, what you can't hear affects ehat you do. Why does EarthWorks produce mics that go way out to like 50K? Why do my VanAlstine amps go from like 0-500Khz yes 500khz!!! Why are they using FAST slew rates liek 800V/uS, when all teh gurus say anything above 25 or so is wasted, why do teh Vanalstines sound better than teh sloooooow, diminsihed freqs ones? What you hear is influenced by what you don't harmonics etc. That's the olded falsehood in stereo, Oh, i can't hear above blah blah blah, why should teh system be able to go far beyond..it matters

I was going to draw an analogy between science saying we can't hear it and so it doesn't matter...and science saying cables cannot possibly be audible. But, nope, I'm not gonna do it. I'll simply take the occasion of agreeing with you and say that sometimes science's inability to explain something doesn't make it irrelevant.

Dup, you are actually thinking outside the box on this one. Whassa matter wit you?

Please don't misunderstand what I meant. I know that what you can't hear is just as important as what you can hear. I was just going back to my standard thing about pleasing your own ears. I think specs are important but pleasing your own ears is even more important.

But i do hear teh effects of teh exteneded freq responses, teh faster ckts. i do not hear AC line cords etc. Look inside a CD or SACd player....After you change out teh line cord, it winds up being connected to the interal ckts of the player with some rather common, cheap, wire from the IEC to the fuse holder or switch, so how can the first 6 feet do anything being in the middle of the 12/14ga NM wall wire, then you insert this magic cord of 6 feet, then again it's reduced to some Chinese connection wire of about 18ga. or less. Soldered by non magic solder, etc. The thing that matters for line cords, amapacity, insulation rated for it's inteneded use. You can measure the influences of speed and exteneded freq responses of pre and amps, how do you measure the influence of an AC line cord? Let alone the difference between PVC or a rubber cord? This month Sensible Sound has an AQ ad for 36V bias RCA 75 Ohm wire. Now they are mentioning using it for audio and Video!! now how can that be? Last month ad had 72V listed for AUDIO how can this magic wire know it's video electron or audio and do it right? Since most of these magic wire companies sell use specific magic wires. What is teh difference in sound between teh 36V bias or 72V bias magic? They claim there is no current, so the battieries last long time, how bout' thos LED's they now put on it, what's that do? If it lights up, it must be using current? Why not bias the speaker wires? Why only the signal connectors?

Why is it that you can hear the things you think are important and not hear things you don't think are important. Things such as slew rate beyond a certain point are irrelevant to everyone but you. Others can't hear them but you can. Is it such a leap that others can hear differences in wires cables and other components and you can't.
I am an engineer and have been taught that any properly functioning amplifier will sound the same as any other(NOT). I had to revise my thinking about wires and cables also. Until it was demonstrated to me that wires and cables sound different I would refer to my test gear and theory. A perfect example is negative feedback. On test signals and theory wise it is a good thing. How come amplifiers with lots of negative feedback sound so awful? I used to think that if I couldn't measure it it didn't exist. I realize now that we don't know what to measure or how.

I once traded a bunch of tube gear for a lot of early SS gear. It had great specs but sounded so bad I almost gave up listening to music. Six months later I traded the SS stuff for some more tubes and the magic returned. I have used nothing but tube preamps since. I also use tubes to drive my ESL's. SS is good enough for my subwoofers.

Cool, I'm glad you gave us an update. I'm always curious as to what people decide on after they do a little comparison shopping. Impressive hifi doesn't have to cost a fortune. That's what Music Hall is all about.

As long as your ears are pleased so am I. Current SS gear sounds quite good. It just sounds different than tube gear. That's not a value judgement. It's just an observation.