Amp(s) for B&W 802Ds

[fuzzy]

Hi all,

I recently picked up some B&W 802ds and looking to upgrade my amplification as I need more power to drive these.

Current set up choices are either:
Cyrus 8XPD Qx or Arcam Alpha 10

Cyrus is 70W and Arcam 100W so neither sufficient for these speakers.

I’m looking for an upgrade path from here.

Options I am looking at:
(1) Adding additional Cyrus power amp eg X Power to bi-amp. Benefit is that it is relatively cheap but doesn’t add that much power. Cost c £400
(2) Adding Cyrus X300 signature monoblocs. Add a lot of power but not sure if I can use my Cyrus 8 as a pre amp with these? Cost c £2.5k
(3) completely different set up (eg Classe pre/ AMP2 could be picked up for about 2k)

I’m leaning towards trying to use my Cyrus 8 as it has a built in DAC and I mainly just stream so helpful for that but open to other options.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[fuzzy]

They are rated 50-500W into 8 ohms (ie 70-100w very much the bare minimum) and are famously difficult to drive. Also listening to them vs the test set up of the chap I bought them off, they are struggling at the bottom end.