Rockport Altair matching amplifier?

Oh yeah, Rockports have shown with Absolare tube gear in the last few years quite a bit. At CES 2015, the Rockport Cygnus was driven by Diagastino amps.

At the Las Vegas SHOW in 2013 I heard the Altairs driven by the MSB solid state mono blocks (200 watts/channel) the sound was okay, nothing special. When these amps were replaced with the Absolare Paaion amplifiers PSET (50 watt/channel) the improvement was profound, no other way to describe it. This was a transformation that simply raised that room/system to a different level. They received numerous "Best Room Sound Of Show" awards. The presentation became alive, involving, 3D naturalness and realistic (excellent tonality and timbre). The dry, flat and 2D uninvolving sound was gone! It was quite a contrast to hear in person, no other variable was changed, just the amplifier swap.

I've had the opportunity to heard this Absolare Passion-Altair pairing in a friend's system many (enjoyable) times in the past 18 months and it is marvelous. I'm unaware of any SS amp that would likely match this superbly natural fleshed out result. Some SS amps will provide more bass weight/impact but that's about it in terms of advantage IMHO.
Best of Luck,

Charles is right in saying that a solid state amp may give a little more grunt in the upper mids; after all the speakers go down to 2 ohms in the 40 to 100 hz range. One could add a subwoofer if they feel that they need more in this area while using it with a tube amp.

My friend uses the Lamm M2.2 monoblocks to drive his Rockport Antares speakers. These are actually 220 wpc hybrid amplifiers, but with only one tube in each amp, (a 6922 tube to be specific). Being a hybrid amp it combined the power of solid state with a touch of tube sound. These amps are some of the best amps we've heard with these speakers. Only the (150 wpc stereo tube) VAC Phi 300.1 amp was comparable out of the half dozen or so he auditioned.

Good luck in your search.

Kurt,
I heard these speakers driven by the VAC Phi 300.1 configured as mono blocks 300 watts per side. This is a very good pairing but it isn't up to the Absolare Passion level of performance/presentation in direct comparison. The Lamm push pull 100watt/channel amplifier wasn't close to the VAC/s sound when heard in the same system. Perhaps the hybrid Lamm is the better Lamm for the Altair. YMMV as always.
Charles,