Tube Amps

SirJun.. if you can come up with another 400-500 dollars,you can get a used BAT VK-60 and that will set you home free for a long long time..good luck..

for 2000, you could have a VAC auricle, which has independently biased tubes and a built in meter. it's 55w and should drive your speaker fine in you sized room. jazz is fabulous with tubes and definitely through this amp. the midrange is particularly sweet with the el34, perhaps sacrificing a tiny bit at the frequency extremes. i have one and love it! plus if (and that is a really big if!!!) you ever have a problem with it, Kevin at VAC is fantastic (as is their customer service in general). though i must emphasise that i have never had any problem with the amp, it has been flawless in operation and a joy to listen to!

I just bought a used BAT VK-60 for $1800, and the sound is mesmerizing. Also the amp is self-biasing (automatically adjusts the current to the output tubes), so you needn't worry about that. The Quicksilvers are marvelous bargains and extremely well made, but I find the sound a little dark. Good Luck. - Jeffrey

VAC's Renaissance amps and CAT's amps are Class A triode designs. They all exceed your budget, however.

That said, you might be able to pick up a VAC 30/30 Renaissance Mk. III used for +/- $2,500. It is as trouble-free as a tube amp can be because (i) it is self-biasing, (ii) uses super long long-life 300-B output tubes, and (iii) has great build quality. It also has a "sentry circuit" that automatically shuts down an output tube if the tube starts to fail. It is only rated at 32 watts channel, but is much more powerful than its wattage rating suggests due to its very high quality power supplies and output transformers. It can drive most speakers to loud levels in average size rooms (it is a beast of an amp that weighs 85 lbs. - it can drive a 2 Ohm load). The styling is gaudy in my opinion, but the sound quality and build quality are truly supurb.

The only hassle to owning a good tube amp is that most put off a goodly amount of heat and you can't leave it on 24/7, meaning that you have to give it time to warm up before letting loose (it depends on the amp, but generally speaking, anything less than a half an hour of warm-up stresses the tubes and other internal parts). This requires that you "plan", to a certain degree, when you will listen to music, which some people find unacceptable.

Another possibility: a used VAC Avatar integrated. I have one and love it. Should be able to drive your Ushers easily.

TLH