Refined SS Stereo pwr amps under 10K?

You might consider checking out the Emotiva XPR-2 amp. It is very powerful, has gotten great reviews, and comes with a 30 day in-home trial and a 5 year warranty...

http://emotiva.com/products/amplifiers/xpr-2

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5560-

For solid state- Pass Labs.
Did you consider a ML power amp?
There are so much great gear out there. Bryston comes to mind as well. Keep us posted & Happy Listening!

Have you considered the Spread Spectrum Technology Ampzilla 2000 2nd edition.Check out the review at 10 Audio, also rated highly in the pages of The Absolute Sound.I absolutely love my pair and as a bonus they run extremely cool for an amp rated at 300 watts! 8500.00 new but here on AudiogoN there is a dealer who sometimes has demo pairs at a discount.They also make a stereo version.
Jofi

Do me a favor and call Mr. Klaus Bunge from Odyssey and get yourself a Symphonic Line amplifier. Your search ends here. These german amps are absolutely the finest SS amps extant; sounding neither tubey or transistory, but just like music! Smooth as silk in the highs and mids, testicular and rock-solid in the nether regions. They are also priced right. Sure there's Gryphon or Voila or Dartzeel or Soulution or Balabo, but you need to pawn your soul to Beelzebul to afford one. I've heard these other amps at shows and other venues, let me assure you that SL's sound is absolutely in the same company. Call Klaus and tell him Jojo says hi!

"09-13-14: 5560
For reasons too lengthy to describe, I cannot do monos, so I'm looking for a stereo amp. I've always read that Spectral amps require proprietary cables, odd input impedance matching such and they don't play well others so to speak."

If you can't use mono amps due to space issues, the Theta amp I mentioned in my first post is multichannel. As long as your speakers have 2 sets of binding posts, you can use 4 channels on it. I mentioned it because you brought up the Ayre V-5. The Theta Deradnaught and the Ayre are designed by the same person. I think the V-5 sounds a little better, but the Theta is a bit more powerful. I use the Ayre myself, so I'm pretty familiar with it. That said, looking at your system, I still feel a new preamp would make for a better upgrade. But that's just my personal opinion.

What is it about your ARC that makes you want to upgrade that component, as opposed to another? You'll probably get better recommendations if you provide more details about it.