Moon North Collection Versus Pass Labs X350 - Which would have that liquid sound?

@dman777 I owned Focal Sopra No2 for a while and used a Luxman M900U amp at that time. I have a decent number of years of experience with the M-900u and have used it many different speakers and source gear and know it well. It’s a wonderful amp, still holds its own today. In my opinion it’s not a dead neutral / uber resolving type of amp, but seems to be voiced for a certain kind of beautiful sound. Don’t get me wrong it is plenty detailed and refined but overall it has a kind of tone or slight sheen to it that is really beguiling; I would never call the amp sharp or hard more along the liquid side. That being said I did not enjoy the pairing with Focal No2. Except for a few recordings which sounded incredible, I found the Be tweeter too forward and with an artificial metallic presence that always called attention to itself. I could not get them out of my system fast enough. 
A few years went by and apparently I didn’t learn my lesson with Focal Sopra and bought a pair of No1’s to use with my Luxman L-509x and L-590mkii, and also an Octave integrated- it was pretty much the same ending. There is something about this sopra series that does not agree with me. I find them to be unnatural and hard to relax with. Now, after having owned a few moon amps, most recently the 761 I can easily understand why you are looking for more liquidity. My recommendation is don’t change your amp. The 861 is killer. Change your speakers. 

+1 @audiopacer

@dman777 audition ATC SCM40 passive. I heard these speakers and I can tell you for the money they’re hard, if not impossible, to beat when it comes to reproduction of every genre of music. They will rock as well as do large scale symphonies or acoustic jazz. And won’t hurt you with those 90s rock and punk albums. Better fit in my opinion than the sopras in your case. Good deal without compromising sound quality. 

Interesting thread. I decided to combine the best of both worlds. I have the simaudio Moon 791 preamp and the Passlabs XA 25. The interconnect is a Cardas Clear Rev. 1. I do not claim that it is better than some of the systems described but the synergy is excellent to my ears and given my modest room configuration of 20x11.

With the combination of, Luxman 595, Eversolo A10, Focal... I would expect you would be looking for a warmer more musical sound. Those taken together push towards the detailed and trebly side of things. The Luxman solid state sound is very  shiny (every time I hear one, that is what comes to mind). 

If it were my system I would look to replace the preamp first. Get the core to be warm and natural. Moon is not warm... it is resolving and somewhat dry. 

With your Focal speakers (also resolving and a bit hot on top) you want a warmer more musical amp / preamp. The new Pass integrates are really good. They are getting surprisingly good rhythm an pace from a solid state amp that is resolving but not overly romantic. 

If it was me, I would look at an Audio Research or Conrad Johnson Preamp and a  Pass XA amp or if you want cleaner faster Xamp. Although realistically tube amps will get you closer to the real thing.  

After about a week of using my Luxman 595, I switched back to my Moon 861 with my low fi Yamaha rn 2000a as a preamp.

The Moon sounded so beautiful. It was really pure and blissful. It wasn't bright at all with the Yamaha.

When it comes to Hi-Fi, I can’t trust my mind and my ears. I’ll go through periods loving an amp, then I’ll go through periods not liking the amp. Then I’ll go back to loving it. No matter what the amp is I do that.