No offense to anyone on this thread or any amp I mention, YMMV and speaker selection matters immensely. I've owned some great integrateds, they were all terrific in their own right but....the VAC Avatar was really nice...a really fine el34 integrated with a decent phono stage. The 160 was also nice and ditto the phono stage. The suggestion of the McIntosh 2275, again, no offense intended, but that amp is troubling. It looks cool but it is NOT a great amp....just merely good. I'd take an Avatar 10 times out of 10. I like the Audio Research VSI75 better than all lf the aforementioned, even the VAC 160i. If you can live without the phono stage, I find the VSI75 to have significantly more snap and quite a bit more texture without any grain. Probably just the difference between kt88's and kt120's. The best integrated Ive ever owned, and I regret selling it, was the Nagra 300b integrated.