Lamm 1.2 or Ayre MXR's

For high-order crossover speakers, the original Salons are quite good - exceedingly good at current used prices - and have to be paired carefully with electronics. I ran my Salons with Rowland Model 6's (with batteries) and VAC Renaissance 140's for use with symphonic music with great success. It is a myth that they require a ton of power - as a really good speaker, they cast a very negative light on the global feedback used in almost all high-powered amps. My experience is that they definitely sound best with 100 to 150 watt amps, assuming you are not using them in a huge room for symphonic or pop music, or using them for home theater (an enormous waste of a very good speaker, by the way, but that's generally how Revel and their dealers pitched them).

Either of the amps you are looking at are fine. Because you have the Ayre preamp, it would presumably match up best with the Ayre amp. The Lamm puts off a lot of heat, but sounds very good for what is basically a solid-state amp and is plenty powerful assuming intelligent use of the speaker. I never ran mine with my darTZeel, but have a close friend who did so for several years and it was a superb match in every respect. Every set-up I heard using recent-vintage Madrigal amps sounded like shit on Salons, but I did hear them sounding good with 434 monos at one of my dealers.

Good luck.

The Salons may be over kill for ( home theater ) Raquel , but have you heard a Blueray music video played back thru your Fi . Its equal to or better than what i'm getting from my SACD's . And i bought into Blueray with an inexpensive spinner . Have a great evening . MAX

Salons are very impressive for home theater because of the 4th-order crossovers, multiple proprietary drivers, and copious deep bass (i.e., they go loud as hell, cleanly). I just think their best use is with high resolution, two-channel audio, particularly when used for symphonic music, especially what it costs at retail to obtain a speaker that can do symphonic.

I would definitely go with the lamms 1.2, if not M2.2
Tried and proven amps.

Do the Lamm's run hot ? I leave my equipment on 24 7 52 , so the last few decades i've tried to stay away from hot running gear . I loved my A.R.C. Ref 3 pre amp , but even turning off the gear between listing sessions I was still logging over 5000 hours per year . ( old retired fart ) . Meaning new tubes every 10 months , $550. per set , plus a 3 to 4 hundred hour run in time , 45 minute warm up time , and the air conditioner had to run more in the summer , that you could here slightly in the music room .