I think the trick here is to work out what it was in the McIntosh/Sonus Faber system that was really making the difference.
I have spoken about this before, but i think that some equipment, often but not always amplifiers, are just so much better than the norm that they make systems sound really special.
There is, to my ears, a general mediocrity that overlays much modern equipment, and most systems. There is nothing wrong as such, just an overwheming feeling of, well, averageness. Hard to explain as a lot of people simple do not hear what I am describing, but from time to time we here from someone like the OP who have suddenly been exposed to a really good setup or sometimes, someone new to the hobby who finds that the equipment he is being told is great, thrilling etc, finds it nothing of the sort.
Clearly a lot of this equipment is pretty expensive, some frighteningly so but there are systems that can be put together at reasonable cost that do things very differently from, even highly rated, mainstream product. Finding it of course is the difficult bit, a good dealer will help immensly.