Good upgrade from Levinson 33H's

i also have 33h's and have ALSO wondered what would REALLY be better. i have heard halcro and the new vtl's and would not get them. i have NOT heard dartzeel or goldmund, etc. PROBLEM IS: the levinson's are very transparent imho EVEN THROUGH my von schweikert vr9se's, and do not sound sterile or hard. PERHAPS side by side with pass xa-200.5's? ok, MAYBE there would be a difference worth spending the $$ on. then again, maybe not.

i would add, in all fairness, that the OLD PASS ALEPH 1.2'S sound incredible. of course they run very HOT, the power switch is in the BACK next to the speaker connectors, which is really dumb. then there's the impedence problem (they don't provide alot of juice below 4 ohms). other than all of that, they sound as good or better than vtl's (my opinion) and obliterate most SS amps i can think of. a pair was recently on sale here, and if i didn't have the levinsons or a pair of rowland 12's sitting in the closet, i would have made an offer.
the new pass xa-.5 amps are undoubtably better, but if you've ever heard the aleph series, you might just overlook their shortcomings with the 1st alblum you play, and buy them. IF you don't mind spending less money of course...

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...

well i AM going to try a ps audio soloist premier (the thing that goes into the wall with the upgraded black outlet that got a favorable review) to feed the amps. a rep at ps audio assured me that it does not limit current. even though the amplifiers regenerate A/C internally i did read a comment or two in the forums that the 33's and 33h's benefitted from well-designed (and of course non-current limiting) devices that reduce A/C noise upstream from the amps themselves. Plus with numerous brown-outs and brief but annoying power interruptions common to the area where i live, Some form of Protection would seem better than the "direct-to-the-wall" approach. it will be interesting if i hear any differences in the sound, although my expectations are understandably pretty low...