Simaudio I5 to separates?

Thanks for the input, keep it coming. Am particularly interested in any comments from those who have had an I5 in the past and moved on to something that they like better.

To address a few of the comments made so far...

At the moment I'm looking mostly at used gear, and as such don't want to borrow any gear from a retailer - if I borrow a piece of gear, it has to at least be under consideration for purchase from that retailer. The way I see it, if I expect my preferred dealers to treat me fairly, I have to do the same to them.

I have done a fair bit of experimenting with cables, power conditioning etc., but the one area where I could look before going "big" is speaker cables - although based on the Kimbers' reputation, what I am hearing doesn't come from them.

I agree that separates doesn't always equal better sound - I previously had a passive preamp and Bryston power amp, and that setup was easily bettered by the I5, and the upgrade didn't wind up costing any money. But, I worry that an AX-7e would be more of a sideways step from an I5 and wouldn't be a worthwhile change, as it would be more of a change (some improvements, some drawbacks) than an upgrade.

In general, if I'm gonna upgrade, I'd like to make sure that it will be a real upgrade, not an incremental upgrade. The I5 really is very good, so that makes it harder to be sure.

The first step would be to buy a power amp and use the pre-outs from the I5, and then step 2 would be to replace the I5 with a preamp...of course, all of this would entail the purchase of 3 balanced interconnects as well, so it's not a minor project!!!

So an update after playing around a bit with power chords and speaker placement:

First off, my feeling that the problem was related to amplification has to do with the fact that when there's additional mid-bass energy, it can be due to a lack of power in the amps decreasing the response in the lower bass. I still believe that may be happening, but was not at the "base" of my problem (so to speak).

The problem was simple...the Shunyata Venom power cable that I was using on the phono stage was somehow causing a mid-bass bloat. I found this out when swapping the Audience powerchord into the phono stage and putting the Shunyata back on the CDP. When I did that, the CDP seemed to have a bit of a bloat but vinyl did not. Seeing as I've been mostly listening to vinyl these days, I had not noticed that the problem was much more evident on the vinyl side.

So...I guess what I have found is that while the Venom is a decent inexpensive power chord, there is a reason that I paid the extra $$$ for the Audience. Also, the phono stage seems to be a bit more picky about power chords than the CDP, which might be down to the CDP having a better power supply.

My next step, I guess, will be to replace the Venom with another Audience chord, before considering mega $$$ equipment upgrades.

(Oh, and it wasn't speaker placement - they wound up right back on their little "x" marked out on the floor)