Amp upgrade from Ayre V-5xe

techno_dude,

Clarity is not the issue, asserting opinion as fact is and that seems to be your way. Hopefully, readers here are astute enough to temper those types of statements with proper caution, ie #ignore.

Dave

I appreciate everyone chiming in.

Two things:

1 - I am not changing my speakers. I love my Revel F228Be! I had them on preorder since April, and just got them a few weeks ago. I used to have the Revel F208 for a while. 

2 - I am just looking for a two channel amp. I am not going to switch to any Integrated 

I use only balanced operation from CD, and phono....and out to the Vandersteen high pass filters then to the amp. I then run the speakers bi-wire.   I would ruminate on John Rutan's advice.....he is a whiz at this stuff.

If you insist on changing the amp only, to get a worthy noticeable improvement you will need to step up to a Ayre VX-R ( even better a VXR twenty), or a Luxman M-700u / 900u.

And still if it was my move I would change your preamp also, because each night you will go to bed or listen to your system you will ask yourself ( little inside voice) how better would your new amp sound with the latest and better  preamp like a KX-R or a Luxman C900u, ARC Ref6. ( this is why I was giving you the advice of getting an integrated like the Luxman L509x wich has one recent hugely good preamp section built in).

I get it Techno Dude... In the perfect world I would scoop the Ayre monoblocks. But I do have to stay in my budget. Money is an issue for me.

Besides, does it make sense to spend double and triple the price of my speakers for an Amp to drive them? It defies the “laws” of Audio.

Thanks for the nod on Luxman. Reading some reviews on them today, outstanding! Pricey though