JC1 upgrade to Lamm M2.2 or dartzeel 108B or Ayre?

Taoh2,
Given the nature of an open forum these types of questions can only be answered in very general terms based on an individuals own personal listening experience. Based on my hearing the three brands that you listed I would have to agree with Keith and choose the Dartzeel. I find it to among this group of SS amps the more natural sounding and realistic musically. As Keith noted, it is more organic and thus for me more involving to listen to. I hope you can hear these 3 amps and decide, your taste could be very different from mine.

Tao2-

the CJ Act2 Series2 is my reference (tubed) pre-amp until I can demo the ART3 model. That stated, keep your CJ and look into a Pass Labs power amp. This union would be a very nice synergy. More importantly, which cables/power cords are you using? Any other cable companies are you considering?

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!

Cstooner what other brands of solid state amps have you heard and in direct comparison to Ayre?

The Ayre amps are indeed very good amps, but so are a lot of other top solid state designs from BAT, Electrocompaniet, Pass Labs, and many, many others.

The only way you know is to do a direct shoot out on one particular set of speakers.

Is Ayre better than the JC 1 no contest, Parasound makes very good products, but class leading they are not.

The other thing he might also consider a CJ tube amplifier some of their newer tube designs are very reliable and sound fantastic.

Taoh2: I am the importer of darTZeel and am assuming you are going to be looking in the used market since you are on Audiogon and as such this is not a sales pitch that I would benefit from. It is purely to give you the input you are looking for.

darTZeel, IMHO, makes the finest sounding amplifiers built regardless of being tubes or SS. I consider myself a tube guy and since owning the NHB-108, I have not had tubes in my system other than listening to trades or for comparison purposes.

I have great familiarity with Parasound, LAMM as well as Ayre and would choose the Ayre last out of the three you were considering (sorry Ctsooner). darTZeel would be far ahead of either of the other amps you mentioned.

If you have any questions, let me know I would be happy to share with you some of my experiences.

Steve Nugent may have pertinent information regarding modifications for your well regarded JC1s.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/about-empirical-audio/

Ayre is announcing their newly voiced "Twenty" series on page 60 of the 2015 March issue of Stereophile.

Personally, I'm in the speaker replacement camp followed by tailoring any electronics around the new speaker which is usually far less of a factor. At this level in home auditioning should be a must to fulfill your subjective taste.