Guitar lacking bite, vocal lacking presence

What source are you using/feeding into the Ayre? Stacked components like that often inhibits gear to perform it's best (magnetic, electrical and mechanical interference with each other). Dress your cables, keeping signal cables away from power cables (do the best you can do). Are these characteristics you are mentioning heard with all recordings containing guitar and vocal, or just some? My best, MrD.

BTW, clicking on the photo gives a more accurate portrayal of the setup.

I am going to be very blunt and hope to not appear as being rude:

The very first thing I did was look at your profile. You are here since 2003 (at least that is what it shows me). That is 22 years. In all these years one would (I assume) have learned to arrange a system properly; especially with such good components that you have. Can you try to clean the mess, set up the speakers properly and then try to play some music? How big is your room, how far are the speakers from the back wall and how far do you sit from the speakers?

@milpai

Plus one ... cmon

I would suggest you buy a decent hifi rack and sort out the cables etc, as it will not help with everything sitting on the floor soaking up all the resonances etc.