Recommendation on power amp

I am based in us, 
I asked John Atkinson recommendation for amp to pair with the kef blade 2 and he wrote back saying the ayre mx-r twenty would sound excellent in my current system.
i am now nearly convinced to find myself a pair of mx-r twenty .
will keep everyone posted on how the combination sounds 
thanks everyone 

@newtoncr

John Atinkinson isn’t wrong, but I see no benefit in regards to transparency over the Benchmark amp when monoblocked; the Benchmark has far lower distortion, especially at lower watts where you mostly will reside. The only negative of the Benchmark is the industrial look.

@mzkmcv As someone who owned the Benchmark AHB2 and tested the amp with the Magico A3. I was a little disappointed in the comparison with the Mark Levinson 585 and upwards gear. The ML gear trounced my Benchmark with regards to space between instruments, the disappearance of the speakers, and some other things that I cannot articulate now. I was bummed enough to sell the Benchmark almost immediately after that demo. The AHB2 is a very good amp (not great) and I miss it in my office relative to my current Peachtree Nova 150. However, for the Magico A3 it was not that special.

I am also looking to buy the Blade 2 once my toddler is a little older and I was thinking that the Benchmark AHB2 in monblock form would have been a giant slayer, it wasn't.

@yyzsantabarbara

You hear what you hear. However, I bet I could easily trick you into what amp you were listening to if you don’t know what you weren’t listening to. No one is immune to bias, even if subconscious, once you know the brand, price, and/or asthetic, measurements don’t tell you jack. Also, need I remind you of the $10K amp challenge.

“Space between instruments” has nothing to do with an amp besides channel mismatch and crosstalk, which neither of Benchmark nor the ML has issues with.

Also, the Blade 2 is excellent, better than most all around its price, and anything Wilson puts out, but due to its side-firing woofers, what room it’s in (or how much treatment you have) becomes a factor. Once you go far off-axis (50°+), it has huge dips around 500Hz and 4kHz and a large wide-frequency hump centered around 1kHz around 90°,  so I would suggest either a very wide room or a good amount of thick acoustic panels to the sides of the speakers.

Or, sell all your equipment, get the Dutch&Dutch 8C and dual Rythmik G25HP’s.

Of the amps I have owned (nothing top notch) I could easily tell which was which in a blind test.

1) Peachtree Nova 150. Decent mellow sound, not so clear on the high frequencies.

2) Benchmark AHB2. Clear and quiet (my fav that I owned) but the sound was coming from the speakers. The sound did not separate away from the speakers. I tried this amps with 3 speakers, Magico A3, Audience 1+1 V3, and KEF LS50 it had the same characteristics with all of them.

3) Various Bryston, 4B-ST, 7B-SST. I can always tell by the high frequencies.

4) Parsound A23. A veiled sound but not harsh

I am actually someone who thinks there is a lot of diminishing returns with higher cost audio gear. I think my bias are the opposite that you describe.

I am actively shopping for new gear and I recently heard the following 3 amps. Mark Levinson 585, SimAudio 890A, Lyngdorf 2170. I could easily pick out the Lyngdorf, but I would have a tougher time between the ML and SimAudio.

Unfortunately, during this recent shopping spree I am finding the higher cost amps sound better to me. There are many things I do not know but one thing I do know is that my hearing is incredible.