need amp recommendations for more separation of instruments


I've noticed that if I play music that only has a few instruments playing at the same time it generally sounds great, but, if it's got a lot of instruments playing different parts at the same time it all mushes together and you can't hear the individual instruments clearly. My current rig is a NAD M10 and Focal Aria 948s. At a store, I heard 948s paired with a front end costing about $100,000 and that system did not have this problem, at least it not to my ears. That tells me that with really good electronics this problem can be greatly reduced and that the problem is more with my electronics than it is with my speakers. But $100k is out of my budget. My questions are:

  1. Are there some classes or types of amplification that are notably better at getting separation between instruments in complex music?

2.  Are there some brands that are notably better at getting separation between instruments in complex music?

3.   How much would I need to spend to get something that solves this specific problem notably better than my NAD M10?

4. How much would I need to spend to get something that's a really good solution, where I probably wouldn't notice the problem unless I went out of my way to listen for it? (I know, this differs between people, but I'm still interested in your opinion).

Thanks,

ahuvia

once you have optimized your speaker and listening positions, amplifiers do make a difference in separation of musical elements. class A amps or amps that run high into class A do this the best from what I have owned and heard.

A pass labs XA25 does this spectacularily well for example.  

Ask the Focal dealer, they will likely know the surest method to optimimize your setup from speaker setup to amp matching. When I bought a Parasound amp I called Parasound for speaker recommendations and they had great recommendations. It works both ways if you ask the speaker dealer for amp recommendations.

Is it an M10 or M10v2.  The Original M10 was maybe not the best and most resolving amp NAD has produced.  The V2 came out explicitly to address some of these issues.  The V2 on the other hand should sound pretty good.  

With focal speakers, further spread is good.  You can also consider over-toeing so that the speakers are crossing 1.5 to 3’ in front of your head.