I was reading on these boards and others for years how outboard amps are a must. I couldn't understand why because my system was just dandy loud enough with my receiver. I could keep turning my receiver up and up and up until it was hard on the ears due to the harsh highs. I thought the harsh highs represented the amp limit.

Was I ever wrong! I see now how my Onk and my mid-grade audiophile (?) Pioneer receivers differ by listening and also looking under both hoods. The Pioneer, right up to the point where it self-protects, allows for all the dynamics to come through. The Onk starts limiting those dynamics from a very low gain but rather than telling you it does by self-protecting, it soft-clips. You think you're getting all the original content but you're not. The big reason for the increased dynamic range of the Pioneer is 4x24,000uF caps in each power supply - there are two independent power supplies, one for each channel, each with its own toroidal transformer and cap bank. This is of course very similar to what Axiom does with its amps.

Now I know I need gobs of clean, powerful amplification. While the Pioneer is great for what it is, 55W per channel and those large caps still doesn't cut it for my M5 living room system. I also need amplification for my M100, 160 and QS10 in my main space.

What do you all recommend for 2 channel and 5 channel amplification?