Looking for ideas - new mono blocks for stereo music

@ auxinput
¨Stock – JC1 has a very refined sound, midrange is very smooth and refined. Emphasis is tilted slightly towards the upper midrange which causes the audio to sound just a little bit thin in the midbass area. Sound is soft. Overall, sound to me is just a little bit low fidelity. It’s very smooth and refined, but just doesn’t sing or have that effect of sounding real.¨

Your above observations are exactly how my JC1s, purchased sometime ago, sounded to me before total break in.Too closed in and to be blunt, dull. In fact I mailed the late Bob Crump (R.I.P.) stating that although I appreciated their smooth refined sound I felt they were lacking top end extension to which he answered and I´m paraphrasing, ´give them time and they will open up nicely´. Which they did.

So I would encourage you to keep them working  with the original fuses for awhile longer and after, if you notice the change in sound I´m speaking about, reevaluate the effects of different fuses. In fact I was ridiculed in a long ago post by another member for recommending  that JC1s require the 1500 hours to finally sound their best. I believe this to be the case with most if not all new components and probably the reason for so much turn around of gear that new owners experience for lack of patience. 

Regards

eohtar OP
  Others that sound (no pun intended) interesting but will be a lot harder
to get a hold of in Canada:
Parasound Halo JC1 - around 6K USD

Good choice the JC1's if you get a pair, in high bias mode they sounded really good on Wilson Alexia's my friend has, and as I said if too expensive the new JC5 stereo is suppose to have the same sound character but cheaper.

Cheers George 

Good Day,
Just to clarify, I did carefully read the OP concerns.  I shared my observations because It took me a long time to appreciate the importance of building a strong foundation for a decent sound system. I shared my experiences because I found myself in a similar situation several years ago - at a cross roads on trying to achieve the best sound for the best value for my dollar.   
 
I like most initially looked at investing in the stuff you see, the components. Its not sexy to consider investing substantial money into the hidden unseen parts, like power delivery. But it is those parts that are the foundation of a system. I have seen people waste money buy throwing money at the problem by switching components and speakers in and out of their systems without ever addressing investing in a strong Power delivery foundation.

The point was not to say that too much power is a bad thing, Rather than to point out that the amps design is more than substantial for the speakers he has and is happy with.

He does not necessarily need new amps. However the amps that he has are most likely not performing to their maximum  performance. Perhaps - 50% maybe -  because they not getting enough power/ electricity to their internal components. If his amps are at not at peak performance neither is his system. 

The Power Chords I listed are solely engineered for that purpose. That is all they do. They are specifically designed to insure that maximum power/ electricity is delivery to each component so that the components  are operating at their maximum performance. The more Power the greater detail is achieved.

Additionally adding subs does not translate to to blowing out the neighborhood. Easily achieved by volume control.  His speakers are rated at 32hz at the low end, to further achieve getting down towards lets say 20Hz with out investing a ton of money he would need to get a sub.

By getting a sub to integrate with the system it would expand the mid to lower mid range increasing the overall sound stage and exposing a level of detail that he is seeking. This is unattainable with just his speakers alone.  That sound stage would also have greater spacial separation while simultaneously  achieving an overall lower bass response. 

This is just another long term cost effective way of looking at achieving or solving the issues the OP is facing.

It's been a few days since my last post and I had some time to play around with my system. The first thing I did was to change the gain setting on my current amps from 2V to 1V as suggested by @elizabeth 
Next I slightly moved the speakers - they are now a bit closer together and more importantly, the left channel is a good bit further away from the side wall.
After that it was time to calibrate all the settings (levels and distances) and finally do some listening.
And I must say, it sounds pretty darn good right now. I am not sure if it was the gain setting of the speaker position (probably a bit of both), but the sound has opened up nicely and everything seems a tad more lively with plenty of detail.
I will still look into (meaning listen to) a couple of amps mentioned here (namely the cubed Bryston, Pass Labs, and Classe but at this stage more to satisfy my own curiosity than an actual upgrade.

Another item where @auxinput beat me to it is the suggestion of upgrading cables to get more out of my current amps. While I am not opposed to playing around with cables and agree that they can make a difference and/or help dial in the exact sound you want, I will politely ignore suggestions of power cords that have a listed price of $8400 (that's US btw). Especially when that suggestion had been posted on another threat almost verbatim by the same author. Not to mention the fact that two of those cables would cost me around $22K in Canadian dollars - three times what I paid for both amps together. No thank you!

To sum it up - really quite happy with how the system sounds right now. Sometimes a few small changes can go a long way.
I'll still look into some upgraded cable (both power and XLR) options but at some more reasonable prices.

Right there in Canada, check out Audio Sensibility for all your cable needs, at real world prices.