I want to be moved and have the music touch my soul!

The crossover is out and so if the Ayre pre. It made a huge difference. Oppo direct to SMC power amp.

If I can can summarize - tubes, LPs, classic recordings.  Sounds great to me.  That is what I do, and I am in heaven.  EXCEPT when I messed up the MC & MM inputs when setting up the system.. :)  Took me a bit of time to figure out why Big Bill Broonzy's 1958 recording sounded so awful.

So it sounds like you thought the crossover was deleterious. Is that correct? It allows seamless integration with subs, but at a price. Correct?

I would sell all the components except Oppo player and add Linear Tube Audio microZOTL integrated amp (yes, it's only 1Wpc), and Teresonic single driver speakers (yes, with 100dB sensitivity they will sing with 1W). This set up eliminates a lot of 'stuff' such as cables, output transformers, speaker crossovers... and free the music to allow it to shine through with life. To gain further improvement in sound add a good DAC such as Berkeley Audio Alpha between Oppo and the amp. 

If I were you, I'd add a good DAC. Keep the Oppo and use it as a CD transport and your DVD player. A good stand alone DAC will be a big improvement over the Oppo by itself. Some of the DAC's that I see most frequently mentioned in these forums are: 

Auralic "Vega", Mytek "Brooklyn" and the PS Audio "Direct Stream Jr or Sr."

As for the digital cable, if all your cables already match then "keep it in the family." If you've got a ,mixture of cable/interconnect brands, then God help you in that search!

Good luck and I hope you find what you're looking for (and without too much effort or frustration).