I demoed a half a dozen amps that all sounded the same from Nac, B&K, NAD, Sunfire, RGR and a couple others that made no difference. When I stepped up and tried a Krell product I was impressed at how much smoother music was. All those 200 wpc 'budget' amps sounded hard and unforgiving once I turned the volume up while the Krell, with the same power rating was able to play louder without the speakers shouting at me.
Don't be afraid to listen to products above your budget even if only to hear what you're missing, or not.