Needed: Honest Advice on high-end amps- either mono or stereo

My honest advice:  there are great amps out there these days for a mere $1k.  Maybe less.  But you have to be smart enough to find them.

Or, if your goal is to compete, the sky is the limit so start jumping hard now and be ready to spend.....

@toro3 

A lot. I'd have a look through the virtual systems. 

Hello yesiam_a_pirate.  Fancy cases, polished metal, meters, glowing lights, etc have nothing to do with the quality of an audio amp. Do you want to spend thousands, impress your friends, or listen to music? There is no reason that a more or less even number of quality parts and careful assembly has to be expensive. If you want the best sound for the $$$ spent, try the aps from Starke Sound. I have no connetion to the company, other than a buyer on six occasions. Starke is a commercial (stadiums, ball parks, etc) outfit. They took a look at the class D super amps from Scandanavia (Putzley and friends), scratched their chins and thought, "I see where they are going with that. Suppose we did it this way . . ." and brought out their own class D super amp in a plain chassis, very nice output posts, single ended and balanced inputs, four channels - bridgable, try it at no risk policy. What's not to like? These amps will show you the difference between cables, drive Maggies perfectly, etc at very reasonable prices. You can't go wrong. Enjoy the music. Buy and investment property with the money yoy save.

Now, if you’re going for the Sound, spectacular the imaging from ceiling to floor off onto the side walls. Not natural in musical, but absolutely incredible. Then the Burmeister Boulder and some of those other brands are for you.
 

@ghdprentice I respect your opinion and usually we’re aligned. However, I have to disagree with you here. I don’t have extensive experience with Burmester but heard two full burmester systems and they sounded very natural to me. They actually sounded slightly warmer than I would like. 
As to Boulder, I’ve had my 866 integrated for over a year now driving Wilson Sabrina. The Boulder amp sounds like the components feeding it. It’s not musical with cold and sterile DACs, but will give you goosebumps with a musical and engaging source components. It sounds incredible in my system fed by a Meitner DAC or a good analog source. Very natural, musically satisfying it reproduces music as natural as it was recorded and gives you a true picture. Not overly and hyper detailed, warm enough and vibrant enough at the same time. I would love to have a full Boulder stack.
Or a full ARC stack (huge fan). Or VAC. 
I don’t care much for McIntosh. I think they make gorgeous looking gear that homogenizes everything you play thru it. It does sound good but I just wouldn’t buy a McIntosh amp - not my cup of tea overall. 

I never heard a D’Agostino amp but heard plenty of Krell and love the sound of his amps from his days with that company. 

Also, let’s not forget Pass Labs, Luxman, Accuphase, SimAudio, Coda, etc. All make great components. 

@ghdprentice +1  I suspect some here spent more than that for their speakers alone. As far as I’m concerned, good for them. If my circumstances allowed, I would too