Upgrade question - speakers or integrated?

Great post, Mapman - thanks for the analysis. Truthfully, I guess I'm trying to recapture the sound of my original system:

Maggie 3.6R's
ARC VS-110
Blue Circle 2.1 pre
Musical Fidelity cd

However, that was many years and a divorce ago and a financial road I'll probably never walk down again. I could go back to tubes, I guess - I parted ways with a nice little Sophia Baby Electric a few months ago that was sweet, but underpowered.

I've auditioned but never tried B&W; the Ohms look fascinating, though. Would you recommend them?

s

What are you using for a source? If the system is fine but you're not getting the enjoyment you want, maybe you need a higher resolution source. YMMV, but for me I got the uptick I needed by getting a turntable. This may not be your case, but in mine, the analog source had so much more musical information it became apparent that no downstream component could have fixed what I needed.

Maybe you're committed to digital but need to consider moving to a computer-based system that buffers the data stream, upconverts to 24/96 or 24/192 and outputs to an asynchronous USB DAC.

Sim,

OHMs are a different breed. I always tend to levitate to
them, but Walsh drivers and omni presentation is much
different.

Triangle + Focal have MAggie like qualities but with better
macro dynamics for music that you need to feel a bit as well
as hear.

I replaced Maggies with OHMs. Had Triangles first which
convinced me that dynamic designs could be a viable
alternative.

Tube amp with Focal would might be the ticket if you've been
down the tube amp path with Maggies prior and liked it.
I've heard Rogue Cronus which is very reasonable priced
sound quite nice with Magnepan.

My source is a Rotel 1072 - which I'm going to hang onto. It gives way more bang for the buck than it should. The YBA doesn't have a phono input, though I may get an external phono stage.

And a Rogue Cronus is also in the wings. I used to have a pair of Rogue 120 magnum monos powering the Maggies. They were pretty awesome.

I've been enjoying my Rogue Audio Cronus -- Rotel RCD-1072 combination for many years, and this set up has driven my B&W DM 601 S3, Vandersteen 1C, and my current Revel F-12 speakers to a tremendous level of musical happiness !
The Rotel deck and Rogue amp get along extremely well (I'm using an AudioQuest King Cobra interconnect between them) and this combo may take your Focal's to a whole new level ! Just my two cents ...... Happy Listening.