Good upgrade from Levinson 33H's

Bullot,

Have you ever considered the Vitus amps? They are pure class A as well. I'm not sure if they have a big following in the US. Perhaps not that many dealers around. I found the Vitus way more analog sounding then the 33H. The transistor sound was gone.

But like other people say, upgrading other none equipment things like acoustics can make a massive difference. It's the area where I really need to look into making the changes.

JA of Stereophile also uses 33H's as his reference amplifiers, and on at least one instance in his reviews he has referred to the Ayre MX-R's as possibly his "ultimate" amps.

Thanks for some great ideas folks! Coxhaus, wow, those are some serious electrical changes in the home, make sense though!! (A true audiophile)

Another great vote for the Troy......sounds like that will have to be top of the priority list, after the easy stuff like 20 Amp circuit and change of wire! I will be doing that stuff around May or June, so check back later in mid summer or so and I will try and give you an update on how that went! As for the other amps, Vitus and Ayre....I will do some reading to learn more about them........going from the beautiful 33H's to the skinny little Ayre would be a blow to the audio ego. Like going from a Vette to a (Che-Vette) Just kidding folks, I'm sure the Ayre performance is stunning.......everyone has their own idea of eye candy though. Thanks again to everyone for their comments!

i would like to add an additional comment if i may to this thread-
As i sit down to listen to music, (even to this day) i come away
still amazed at how clean and clear and Dynamic my system sounds, with ML-33H's driving the von schweikert VR9's. even so,
i still eagerly peruse the forums, reading how wonderful the pass amps sound, or the dartzeel's, the soulutions, etc. so the other day i went back to re-read the stereophile review of the 33H's, including the measurements (something i usually skip over). every word rings true to what i am hearing, and the revelation that if you fed the amps more voltage, they would easily put out TWICE their rated power, or that the distortion figures are more like those of preamps than amps, etc. now i do not propose that NOTHING has improved since the day the 33's and the 33h's were designed, but there is no denying
that they were significantly overbuilt compared to many of their competitors.
at a time when ML was doing quite well financially, they seemed to have little concern that people would buy a $35K set of SOTA monoblocks- in fact as it turned out, they were unable to meet the demand for what was (obviously) perceived to be amongst the finest reference amplifiers available.
so for people like myself to own a (demo) pair of 33h's with virtually the same
type of internals as the 33's, and to be as un-disappointed as i am with
their performance, there is little more for me to say or do. the only remaining frustration is that i have to sit by and watch month after month while all of these wonderful new designs get posted and sold without my participation. i guess i'll just have to deal with it while i pay off all my other bills...

Yeah, I hear you loud and clear French Fries......I have no issue keeping them, the fact that I don't know how they compare to the "new and improved" stuff peaks my curiosity! I'm sure I would have to spend tons to get a serious upgrade. I do love my 33Hs. I am going to try that voltage thing, see what happens.