I had a similar experience. I sold off my
Sunfire Theater Grand 1 expecting imminent
arrival of the 950. After this protracted
wait, I mated my Cinema Grand Signature Sunfire (405 wpc) with the DSP AX1 (note above). I should interject that selling the Sunfire was really a dumb idea.

The Yamaha is just fine and does all I ask of it. However there was an intangible with the Sunfire PrePro piece that put you into the movie. This is just not there in the high ticket Yamaha. As an experiment based on
this thread I disconnected the big amp and played the Yamaha straight up. NO DIFFERENCES noted. The sound, presence, timbre, detail, definition, and all those other audiophile words were identical. Even the bass was the same which was a surprise.

I guess I expected more impact and coloration from the power amp. I guess I
am only running at about 10 to 20 wpc in either event, so headroom is plenty in either case.

Having said all that, I suppose my point is that after a certain point, incremental improvements are extremely small and ungodly expensive. Trust your ears and your gut and try to ignore the marketing hype.

eddyboy