most clear, crisp sound power amps, monoblocks ?

Money is no garantee to succes in audio. It never will be. In the world of Highend Audio there is still a lot of shit on the market!!

It depends how much money you can spend. But money does not garantee you a good live sound. In almost 16 years of time I also encouterd many highend sets with a poor endresult.

The combination of the right tools togheter ( sources, speakers, amp, pre amp, cables, conditioner etc) can create a live and realistic sound.

Acoustics of a room are the biggest enemy of a set.

When you have a system with a bigger freq. response, you can create a more live like sound. It is all about making the perfect combination of tools. I call it the art of sound.

I wrote a personal view in how I see a blueprint of the absolute sound. I call it Total sound.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rcabl&1393266431

In my personal opinion Pass Labs also make the most complete sounding poweramps.

Last year I was at a vantage show. It was by far the worst audio show I ever visited. Most of all the vintage was sooooo f.... poor. Expensive and even poor for a lot of money.