For reasons which will become clear and are entirely Steve's fault, I'm on the east side again, and happening to be in the same parking lot as the dumpling place I went this weekend.
Mixed flavor beef shank
Pork chao shou
Braised beef burger
Shrimp and pork steamed dumplings
This is indeed the problem with any publishing that relies on ad revenue alone, it is not in their interest to give a bad review. Makes one wonder if any of them can be trusted, seems to be the lowest common denominator which flocks to the reviewing circus.
I'm running fairly large, inefficient speakers with them, but for your purposes one amp would work fine. It is very solidly built, and has a beast of a traffo in it.
Right now you can get Jet Set Radio (and several other games with it) for free on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/205950/
See the "packages that include this game" and click "Install game"
Since it's a desktop system, I'd also consider the Zamp. I have two (run bridged) and have been really happy with them. The smaller footprint might be nice.
I doubt the fully balanced system would be a large audible gain.
http://www.parasound.com/zamp-v3.php
I don't seem to be able to connect to the benchmark web site, but with the pot at 11PM (are you sure they did not say 11AM?) your output is usually two times higher than line level and the 125+W of the parasound will likely pierce your eardrums...
FWIW I am driving my LS50 using this amp http://www.teac.com/product/ai-2000/ connected in "direct mode" (bypassing the preamp section) to the pre-amp out of my Oppo-BDP105. Listening from about 8ft away in a medium sized room I keep the Oppo volume at 50-60% for most recordings.
Got a call from the mechanic. The Good news: that noise I was hearing wasn't a stuck brake caliper. It was a stick jammed way up into the whee well. The bad news: The -14º weather here in scenic western MA froze my car's battery solid and they had to replace it.
Meh, the good outweighs the bad here by a pretty large margin.
Continued the rebuilt. Emission Labs DHT Tubes, EML 20B-V4.
To the left is variac. Its purpose is to set the two small transformers to appropriate voltage for the filament.