Unhappy with tubes so which transistor amp?

A Steve McCormack modded DNA-225 or even a non modded DNA-500 may do the trick for you. I have the DNA-125 and I love it with a tubed pre and eventually will have it modded by Steve. I believe a tubed pre with either of these amps would give you much of what you are looking for. For the kind of bucks you are looking at spending you need to make arrangements to hear the amp with your sytem and in your listening environment.

How about a hybrid amp?
It combines the best of both worlds, like a solid state amp, for great bass response (deep and tight) and ease of use, and like a tube amp for that great mid-range and delicate treble extension.

I use the Lamm M2.1 hybrid monoblocks (200 wpc). These amps are a Class A/AB amp, that is heavily biased to run in Class A, (up to 36 wpc before they go into Class AB). They only have one 6922 tube in each amp, and no biasing is necessary. (And if you wish, you can even do a bit of tube rolling to get the sound exactly the way you want it. And since there are only two tubes total to buy, it is relatively cheap to tube roll.) These amps are much better than any solid state or pure tube amp I have heard, with one possible exception (more on that later). I have owned a couple of Mark Levinson amps, and my friend, who also owns Lamm hybrid amps (the M2.2- 220 wpc, which is the successor to the M2.1) has owned Classe, Nuforce and Rowland solid state amps, and the Lamm easily bested them all. My friend also went through several tube monoblocks, including the Kora Cosmos, BAT VK-150s, Manley Neoclassic 250s and the VTL MB-450s. Again, the Lamm was clearly better than all of them, although both the Manley and VTLs came closer than any of the solid state amps.

I paid $7K for my Lamm M2.1s, used of course. If you don't need 200 wpc, you can find a used pair of M1.1s (100 wpc - a full Class A amp, btw) for around the same price. I will point out that the only cavaet of using Lamm amps, are that since they are either full Class A, or heavily biased into Class A, is that they run very warm. (You won't burn yourself if you touch the top of the amp, but it will warm up the room a couple of degrees. A tradeoff I will gladly accept in order to get the best sonics I have ever heard!)

However, there is one solid state amp that sounds almost as good as the Lamm hybrids, (and to some people, as good, if not slightly better). That is the 100 wpc DarTZeel NHB-108. Personally, I prefer the M2.1/M2.2s as I like having the extra power in order to get best bass response out of my speakers, (and I think the treble is slightly better too), but if you must have a solid state amp, this is the one to get, IMHO. They sound as good as the Lamms do in the mid-range, which is where the most important part of the music is. Used they run just slightly above $10K, but it would be well worth it to get that quality of sound.

My two cents worth.
Good Luck in your search!

Not to start another flame-fest - but you should check out the NuForce Ref9 V2 SE's. I am using an ARC LS26 with them and they are superb.

They will be replacing my Levinson 336.

stay the course, and give the new arc a shot....you'll be happy you did

I second the Pass. I have the a GNSC modified LS-25 Mk I with Amperex 7308 white label tubes. Used to pair with a Mark Levinson #333 running a pair of Thiel 3.6. Switched over to Pass X350.5 about a year, and was impressed at how good the Pass sounded. If you like the tube midrange and SS dynamics, I think Pass is an excellent choice! If you don't need a lot of power, check out the XA series, which would be around the same price range as the ARC Ref amps.

The rest of my system:
Digital: Mark Levinson #37 + Sonic Frontiers SFD2 Mk II
Analog: Michell Orbe SE + SME V + Shelter 901 + ARC PH3 SE

FrankC