In need of some Amplifier advice. Is therereally any point in it with my current setup?

moskaudio

The only real basis I have for comparison are inifity r.s. 2.5 tower speakers with the 10" subs and 4 electrostats per tower. Which needless to say, blow the polks out of the water in the mid range and vocal area.

That is one sweet speaker system. Watkins woofer and they sound great biamped. Those are magnetic planar drivers, btw, not electrostats.

Those Polk LSiM are actually good speakers and can take you pretty far on your journey - especially for what you paid.  My favorite is the 703.  While its technically not a 'correct' speaker, its a blast to listen to.  I've almost jumped on a pair about a dozen times, but I've managed to stay away.  Honestly, the 707 is my least favorite but your room might be a good place for them. I always felt that line needed a 20-25% reduction in MSRP to really get competitive.  $4,000 for the 707 was just too much money as you start competing with diamond tweeters and the like at that point.

Those adorama packages are impossible to beat for the money, unless you catch a unicorn on the used market.

Make it down to Dallas like someone mentioned above.  Come visit my 'shop' and a few other dealers.  We have a few really good ones down here that I can recommend.  Like I told you in the PM: I'm an enthusiast first and a dealer second.  I want to see you get where you want to go and help you any way I can.

I’ve been where you are. I had a denon 60WPC old 5.1 receiver. One day I splurged $900 on an open box dynaudio center channel and pair of dynaudio audience 50 bookshelfs. I was smitten--THIS is amazing sound, cannot get any better. My all-in stereo was about $1100 and I couldn’t be happier. I’m on a budget, the halo is a dream amp for me I’ve always meddled in mid-high end... now I have a parasound 2125 amp, hareth p3esr speakers, a technics turntable with Pickering cartridge, NAD CD player..the hobby bites you quick. However, my entire setup is only about $5,000 used prices (I only buy used). This setup sounds better than that first one. A dedicated 2 ch amp kills a 60WPC home theater reciever. But I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced as much awe from a single upgrade as those dynaudio speakers on the underpowered HT reciever.

I got more satisfaction experimenting with multiple components in my budget than from spending it all on one piece.
Especially an amp. Amps DO color the sound slightly, but the differences after $400 are slight, from my small A/B tests (paramount, rotel, adcom, NAD). I’m not counting recievers, they color the sound a ton, but a good 2 channel amp will be a great upgrade and doesn’t have to cost as much as a halo.

As others said, speakers are where it counts... playing with different speakers, Maybe subs, Maybe a room mode PEQ like the miniDSP will have more noticible effects.

In my opinion your not stair stepping going from the Yamaha to a halo, your climbing a second story balcony to break in. I’d stick to stair stepping if it were me.

By the way, I had a Yamaha avantage reciever and thought it was bright/harsh. Not a good match with dynaudio. If it were me I would keep the Yamaha for movies and use a passive switch like the schiit sys to bypass the Yamaha (or build a dedicated 2 ch system) when listening to music. For HT you want boom and dsp, for music I only want CD, amp, and speakers. A passive preamp keeps the ’coloring’ of a reciever out and a good used $400-600 amp is plenty. Im a huge fan of using passive preamps, input selectors, and even speaker selectors to have physical control over what a reciever tries to do in DSP.

My point is, having been where you are i wouldn’t jump to a halo yet. But I would find a good, not too old brand name amp for $400-$600 (parasound, emotiva, rotel, NAD)... even more important is to pick speakers first.. some amps mate well with some speakers and horrible with others.

I think you should stick with the Yamaha for now and for quite a while. Amplifiers should not make much of a sonic difference, and by and large they don't. AV receivers are not ideal, but a recent one from a decent brand like Yamaha should not be a serious issue, and the power output should be enough.
The speakers and their interaction with the room are what really makes the sound of a system, and good speakers are expensive. I am not sure what your budget is, but you may have to spend more than you thought you needed. In a room like yours, how about the Harbeth SHL5+ on their own or their M30.1 augmented with a pair of small subwoofers? Both options are expensive but worth every penny. They are also an easy load, so your Yamaha should be fine with them. As an AV receiver the Yamaha will also have the advantage of room eq of one kind or another so you will not need to spend money on that. If good speakers are beyond your current budget, just wait and save. You don't have a bad system right now.

moskaudio,

I’m not sure if you are aware, but there is a great dealer right there in Moore, OK where you can listen to some speakers. Great guy to work with. I’m sending you a private message. I agree with others here that, as an actual transducer, different speakers will make the biggest difference in the overall sound that you will hear.

I, like you, always wondered if I could improve the two channel sound quality of my receiver by adding a separate amp. I have paired separate amps with several receivers, including a Yamaha RX-V1800, Onkyo TX-NR 809, and Denon AVR-X5200. I always like to get receivers that are in the upper middle of the manufacturer’s range, as I do believe they use a bit better components than their "el cheapo" models, but more importantly, because they offer pre-outs. The amps I have used in conjunction with my receivers include a McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe rev. A, Sherbourn 5/1500a, and Krell FPB 400cx.

Now, my family room system is where I have the newest AVR, which is the Denon. The amp I currently have paired with the Denon is a Krell FPB 400cx, which is a class A power amp. I must say, there is something nice about the sound I am now getting with the addition of the Krell. But it is expensive and runs hot as Hades.

If you do decide to add a separate amp, you will need a set of interconnects and I recommend a quality set.