Lamm 1.2 or Ayre MXR's

For high-order crossover speakers, the original Salons are quite good - exceedingly good at current used prices - and have to be paired carefully with electronics. I ran my Salons with Rowland Model 6's (with batteries) and VAC Renaissance 140's for use with symphonic music with great success. It is a myth that they require a ton of power - as a really good speaker, they cast a very negative light on the global feedback used in almost all high-powered amps. My experience is that they definitely sound best with 100 to 150 watt amps, assuming you are not using them in a huge room for symphonic or pop music, or using them for home theater (an enormous waste of a very good speaker, by the way, but that's generally how Revel and their dealers pitched them).

Either of the amps you are looking at are fine. Because you have the Ayre preamp, it would presumably match up best with the Ayre amp. The Lamm puts off a lot of heat, but sounds very good for what is basically a solid-state amp and is plenty powerful assuming intelligent use of the speaker. I never ran mine with my darTZeel, but have a close friend who did so for several years and it was a superb match in every respect. Every set-up I heard using recent-vintage Madrigal amps sounded like shit on Salons, but I did hear them sounding good with 434 monos at one of my dealers.

Good luck.

Salons are very impressive for home theater because of the 4th-order crossovers, multiple proprietary drivers, and copious deep bass (i.e., they go loud as hell, cleanly). I just think their best use is with high resolution, two-channel audio, particularly when used for symphonic music, especially what it costs at retail to obtain a speaker that can do symphonic.

I would imagine that running the Class A-biased Lamm amp on a 24/7 basis would add an extra $50-$75/month to your electric bill - being Class A-biased, it's probably pulling 700-800 watts at all times. Another potential issue is maintaining bias, as some solid-state Class A-biased amps have to be periodically re-biased due to bias drift, and running them constantly may pose a maintenance issue. Don't get me wrong - I really respect the Lamm Class A-biased amp, but such designs could be more practical. I have owned a Class A-biased triode tube amp for ten years (VAC Renaissance 70/70 and 140/140 monoblocks), and can say that they get hot and use a shitload of electricity.

Not to stray off topic, but it could be that you burned through tubes in your ARC Ref 3 preamp precisely because you turned it off and on instead of just leaving it powered up 24/7. Contrary to popular belief, gear that uses small-signal tubes often experiences much better tube life if left on continuously as opposed to turning it on and off. The question I would have about the Ref 3 is whether the 6550 in the power supply would hold up if the preamp was left on continuously. Tubes in preamp power supplies sometimes pass a fair amount of current, and like output tubes in a tube amp, will last longer if the unit is turned on and off.