I want to upgrade from an A/V Receiver (Pioneer Elite SC-91) to separates...
Not to pick any sore points here, but are you sure that you're not already getting 99% sound quality from what you've already got? Think hard--the price goes up dramatically.
Not looking for the exotic, but known brands that have been off my radar. Separate power amp with low noise floor and suitable for the needs of the Klipschorns.
I think if you go off to diyAudio or the old K-forum (i.e., what's left of it--which is mostly found in old threads), you'll see a lot of references to Nelson Pass' First Watt products (basically any model is good). I can attest to the sound quality of the F3 amplifier, which I used for ~15 years on my TAD TD-4002 compression drivers (on a pair of 1st-gen Klipsch Jubilees). I will say that I had to reflow solder to a particular chip about once per year--since it runs pretty hot and I had the amplifier in a flat space of a bay window extension on the west side of my north Texas abode.
I had a
very bad experience with Hypex a few years ago (FusionAmp FA122). Based on that, I would never recommend any of their products...which was a definite design problem that they (Hypex) never acknowledged.
In general, I would be extremely careful of any glowing recommendations of any class D amplifiers, since most of these individuals are not running 105 dB/1m loudspeakers. (This is a controversial position--that I will stand by.) For very low efficiency loudspeakers that require large amounts of power just to hear their output, class D may make sense. Not for Klipschorns and Jubilees, however.
I have not used the Benchmark ABH2, but I've got friends in which I trust their ears that swear by them. They're expensive however if you're talking about a 5.1/7.1 setup. If you go this way, I recommend only the left/right channels and perhaps the center channel with the higher priced amplifier(s). This approach has worked spectacularly for my needs and held costs down.
Integrated preamp of equal performance, no need for a phono input or FM tuner, but really want exceptional room calibration.
I have not found any of the "room correction software" packages that actually work in my room with fully horn-loaded loudspeakers having full-range directivity control. I recommend starting your education--today--on how to manually dial in your loudspeakers in-room using DSP. I've found the results are like the difference between the living and the dead--if trying to substitute "push a button and stand back" dialing-in approaches. You might be able to use Dirac Live Full and a very careful ear to customize the correction curve for your loudspeakers. The problem is that all the measurements are too far back away from the loudspeakers--and measured as "one size fits all"--at the listening position, and that cannot be "fixed" by the next release of room correction software. You'll have to learn how to do it manually to get the last 5-10% of performance out of your setup. All these packages fail to separate the minimum phase behavior of the room from the all-pass behaviors (i.e., room reflections). Take your measurements on-axis at 1m in front of each loudspeaker and get those amplitude and phase responses flattened at that point. The results will astound you.
I want the option to switch from a stereo output using just the KHorns, to a 7.1 surround using existing sub and surround wall speakers.
This is where is gets really hard. In general, you're going to have to choose between multichannel operation and "high SINAD" operation (which I've independently found to be greatly exaggerated in terms of subjective sound quality). Here is a graphic that illustrates the problem:
The "best" AVP--the Trinnov Altitude 16 (which JBL has also stenciled its name on over the years) goes for $17K USD MSRP. And the subjective sound quality is nowhere near that difference in price from any of the other lower priced alternatives, unfortunately. [There is also a Trinnov Altitude 32--which is basically double the price--and twice as ridiculous in terms of trying to justify its extreme price.] We're talking about home hi-fi audio here--not a new automobile.
I use an older Emotiva XMC-1--which is within 2 dB of the same SINAD as the Trinnov A-16. My comment: I can't hear 2 dB of SINAD difference. I can hear 20 dB of difference, but that's about it. I once set up my DAC to separate two-channel vs. AVP circuits, and could hear a small difference. Then the stereo "high SINAD" setup gathered dust until I removed it from the setup (including XLR switches, etc.). I've not regretted removing it since.
I think you've got my drift. Go slow and think about what you really want. I found the price went down by at least 10x when I started to think about what I was really doing.
As far as higher subjective sound quality alternatives I've considered: I've considered using an RME HDSPe AES card in a fairly capable PC (fully DSPed setup--all driver channels separately--like I have them now) instead of the AV processor route--which is a few thousand $'s of investment, but then I'd give up the capability to accept almost any movie or multichannel audio format (like DSD/SACD and related higher fidelity multichannel formats). And going to a PC-based architecture introduces lots of delay--that AV Processor (AVP) boxes may not be able to handle to synchronize with video. I've stayed on base with what I've got, and I'm actually quite happy.
All of the above is "YMMV".
Chris
