A mistake spending too much on amplification?

Not sure this is relevant, but I'm driving $1,400.00 monitor speakers with $11,000.00 worth of amp/pre-amp. Oh yeah, and $3,450.00 in wires. The system sounds superb and even though the speakers were supposed to be interim after selling my Harbeths, they're staying for a while.

Chiho, you're over analyzing the situation. Be happy that your system sounds good.

Ask an average non-audiophile music lover how much better a $100k+ audiophile reference mega-system sounds than the best system you can buy at Best Buy/Circuit City/Radio Shack and they will say one system sounds a little better than the other. Only audiophiles think there are dramatic differences between components.

Chiho, your room dimensions and contents would still be helpful in determining your next step to take. I also feel that upgrading your cabling will also benefit your system in tweaking that last bit of nuance for that "lifelike" sound that you're seeking.

I'm driving $1,400.00 monitor speakers with $11,000.00 worth of amp/pre-amp. Oh yeah, and $3,450.00 in wires.

Tomryan,

FWIW, IMHO, Assuming that you already have a great amp/pre-amp and source (at that price it most certainly better be good).....then, on your next move towards upgrading, consider to sell you cables and upgrade your speakers. Physical limitations of transducer & box design mean that your speakers and their interaction with the room will always be the weakest link. Speakers improve dramatically above $1500 and again dramatically above about $4000, like anything there are diminishing returns above mega high prices ($10k+), but investing more than twice the amount in wires compared to speakers is quite likely limiting your overall system performance. Wires are wires and it sure is nice to have good wires but, IMHO, lamp cord is 99.9% ok most of the time, and it is what people used for decades until this cable thing became a big market.

Unless you have difficult speakers power amps are relatively unimportant.Preamps are much more important because they bring focus and coherence.
Unfortunately most preamps are crap,and of course you don't come to realise this until you hear a really good one.For me this revelation came in the form of Supratek preamps.
I am currently running a $5000 US Supratek preamp with $400 kit chip power amp-and the sound is far superior to any other combo I have owned or used which contained expensive power amps used with ordinary preamps.[including ARC and Metaxas]