Tired of boring, polite, laid-back sound.....

Check into an Onix a120 mkII at av123.com. Very lively sound with excellent detail and solid bass. Only about $700 internet direct.

if you want some immedicy with power look at music fidelity they are the best itegrateds in the world except for one other brand the pathos .the pathos classic one is better than some 15.000.00 seperates

I just spit up my oatmeal.

Naim Nait 5i.

Exposure is British with PRAT like Naim but not as laid-back in H-F as Creek. More transparent than Naim.
Musical Fidelity is laid back, boring, polite - good for classical as designer plays that type of music.

I agree with aball. I had several speakers and several amps. The less than average amps, NAD and Rotel(brit design) made some pretty good music through my top line speakers, and very aweful sound through my B&W speakers.
Equally my JOR amp sounded pretty crummy passing through the B&W speaker.
So what i am saying, speakers are MORE than 50% of the setup.
But as phasecorrect points out, you need to consider your system a total intergration package.
I started with the JOR. I knew I wanted tubes, I knew I wanted a Jadis, barely made the purchase at $2100, I'll admit.
Then I moved on to upgradeing speakers, then to cdp.