Natureboy,
I don't want to talk you out of using tube power on the 2.5 Maggies, they have a ribbon tweeter that I would imagine sounds great driven by tubes. The VAC Avatar is a very good tube integrated but the truth is that 60 watts may not give you enough juice to properly drive the inefficient (84 db) 2.5s, especially the woofer section.
It may work okay if you don't play your music too loudly and your room isn't too big. If you listen to music with strong bass, or listen at high volumes or your room is large, I think you may be happier with a powerful (300+ watts at 4 ohm) ss amp. When I moved from 400 watts of class A/B power to 1,200 watts of class D power, the biggest benefits were the Maggies sounded much more dynamic and the bass was the best I'd ever heard on my panels. Class D amps typically have very high Damping factors which means woofer cones and panels are very well controlled on both starts and stops. This results in very solid, taut and tuneful bass. If good bass is important to you, you will definitely attain better bass performance with a class D amp than either the VAC or a class A/B and the more watts the better.
Good luck,
Tim
I don't want to talk you out of using tube power on the 2.5 Maggies, they have a ribbon tweeter that I would imagine sounds great driven by tubes. The VAC Avatar is a very good tube integrated but the truth is that 60 watts may not give you enough juice to properly drive the inefficient (84 db) 2.5s, especially the woofer section.
It may work okay if you don't play your music too loudly and your room isn't too big. If you listen to music with strong bass, or listen at high volumes or your room is large, I think you may be happier with a powerful (300+ watts at 4 ohm) ss amp. When I moved from 400 watts of class A/B power to 1,200 watts of class D power, the biggest benefits were the Maggies sounded much more dynamic and the bass was the best I'd ever heard on my panels. Class D amps typically have very high Damping factors which means woofer cones and panels are very well controlled on both starts and stops. This results in very solid, taut and tuneful bass. If good bass is important to you, you will definitely attain better bass performance with a class D amp than either the VAC or a class A/B and the more watts the better.
Good luck,
Tim