Monoblock suggestions to compare to SimAudio Moon Neo 400M?

@toddcowles - I left pellets, except on my deck, a long time ago.  I have two Jambos that Jamie Geer built for me.  That's the only pit I cook on I'm completion these days.

I settled on the Wilson Audio Sabrina, but am hoping to swing the next step up, the Yvette.  I've auditions about eighteen different brands of loudspeakers, and for whatever reason, the Wilson sound is what sounds good to me.  We did an A/B with ARC and Moon by SimAudio and the later won out easily.  Realizing that dealers are limited to a handful of brands, and having read about so many great smaller brands, I'm interested in anything that compares to the Moon Neo 400M.

Thanks for your responses.

No surprise here. I always thought Wilson's did better with SS amps. The Moon is a lot of amp for the money. The only amp that might be better would be the Parasound JC-1 which you would have to find used. You would have to spend twice the money with Pass to improve on the Moon. Good choice. Stick with it. What did you not like about the Benchmarks?

Love Jambo’s.  I spoke with him a few years ago, when I was looking to have a pit built.  As expected, he was a little too far out for pit completion, so I moved on.  Happy hunting with the gear!

@mijostyn - thanks for your response. Not a thing wrong with the Benchmark. They are on my list. I’m very green at this, so excuse my ignorance. Somehow I think that amps designed to be mono would sound better than amps that are bridged to be mono. I considered the JC-1 monoblocks, and I’m sure they are amazing. They were a Stereophile A rated product for such a long time. 

I would avoid the Bryston 7B3 amps in your situation.  They are very nice amps, but they are just going to be too fast and thin sounding when compared to your preferred "Simaudio" sound.  Definitely a bad pairing for the Wilson's as well (which can be bright/harsh with the wrong electronics).

The SimAudio is definitely good stuff.  I think it has a sort of visceral grunt in the lower mids and midbass as well as a good depth of sound (ethereal you could say).  The closest amp that I remember hearing to this sonic signature are the Boulder amps.  You might like the new Krell and Levinson but they are much smoother and liquidy sounding in comparison to the dryer sounding SimAudio.

The PS Audio BHK is a very smooth amp, but it is slightly laid back.   I would say that it's very close to the ARC sound.

The JC1 amps are also very nice and very refined, but they are soft in the high frequencies.  I would say they are more natural sounding than the SimAudio, but they do not have that "midbass visceral grunt" or the high frequency extension that the SimAudio provides.

Somehow I think that amps designed to be mono would sound better than amps that are bridged to be mono.

Dedicated mono amps may or may not sound better than bridged-mono amps.  But one thing is for certain.  Bridged-mono amps will not be able to support lower impedance speakers as well.  The Benchmark indicates that it will support a 6 ohm load when bridge (which is really good), but many speakers will have impedances that drop down below 4 ohm in certain frequency areas.  It's never a good idea to buy a stereo amp "just to bridge it".

So, in the end, there are many good amps out there and there is no "best" amp.  It all depends on your "taste of sound", lol.