To all tube lovers.......

In my early days I spent a lot of time with both Krell and Ayre and they do not sound like tubes. I think people mention them because they like them, but they do not fit the criteria of the OP.

I'm also a tube guy at heart but about 12 years ago or so, I went back and forth between a B&K EX442 Sonata (200 into 8, 360 into 4) and a pair of 8417 Paoli M60 monoblocks (highly modded Dyna mkIII's) and was hard pressed to tell the difference. B&K amps cost peanuts compared to what is being mentioned in this thread but are truly tubelike. Other than hi powered B&K, I think a nice hi powered hybrid amp like a Moscode would do the trick; otherwise, a hi powered PP tube amp should work fine....

I agree with Mmike84 that you won't be satisfied with solid state long term but while you are experimenting with it, why not try something like B&K which isn't a lot of money, but a total giantkiller.
good luck,
Lou

the last frontier :
symphonic line kraft-300 amplifier connected to their solid state flgship preamp : rg3 mk4 -with it's new gigantic reference psu.
the rolls royce of high end.
when you hear what this set-up is capable of, you will not feel the need to compare to others, even not to evoulution , balabo, fm acoustics etc.
i am positive that you will also forget about tubes, like i did, and i was a tube fan before i had this unique musical experience.

PLEASE read drdennis's reply above!I agree 100%.I was driving Dynaudio Audience 52SE's(86db @ 4 ohms) with 42 push pull tube watts per channel to ear splitting levels in a med.size room.With the abundance of great sounding 50 watt per channel tube integrated amps available I see no reason to switch to SS.

Without any hesitation, the new Rowland 625 class AB. Trust me on this one, go for an audition, you won't go look any further.

BTW, I own a ARC Ref 110 (tubes) but if I had to go SS, I would switch to Rowland 625. The guy is a genius..