For classical music lovers best amp for large orchestral forces?

@roxy1927 I hope you've sorted out by now that the mismatch between the amp and speaker is the problem and not any of the components otherwise. If you like the sound of the amp at lower volumes, If I were you I would consider a speaker that is easier to drive and by that I mean a lot easier to drive. By about 10dB or so- something in the upper 90s instead of the upper 80s.

Then you won't be pushing your amp into clipping, which is the source of your 'compression'. Also, more efficient speakers have less thermal compression and so sound more dynamic on that account.

A class A amp that has very good current capability and is stable into very low impedances is hard to beat (and often, to pay for).

I use a pair of amps that put out 160 W into 8 ohms and 500 W into 1 ohm.

I dunno...   Marantz Ruby PM KI perhaps?  not super pricey

Although I put together the setup for jazz and baroque, JC 1 monoblocks driving KEF LS50 Metas augmented with a pair of KEF KC62 subs prove surprisingly credible at portraying Mahler’s 2nd. I’ve been surprised that I prefer the sound with an Ayre K-5xeMP preamp to that with the JC 2. I plan to replace the two JC 1s with a stereo Ayre V-5xe as a decluttering effort. I predict the dynamic range will be entirely adequate.

db

But shouldn’t 89dbs with the proper amp be able to comfortably handle large symphonic forces? They really are wonderful speakers.