Amps which are Great, but either Unknown or Underpriced

Okay ... "little known and sounds great:" 

Years ago I bought a Dyna 120 in perfect condition at a garage sale for four dollars. I sent it back to Minnesota to Frank Van Alstine so he could install his circuits. What I got back was a 60 wpc giant killer. It was solid state but if left on for a few hours took on a sweetness all its own. The bass was killer too. Over the years, I've referred many people, especially those on a tight budget to the Van Alstines folks. Good people. Good electronics. Great prices.

Quicksilver mini-mites with 6L6GC tubes and nos 12ax7s kicked my rear end out for a walk! If you don't need to blow your brains out these are hard to beat for anything under $2K!

A note about Vincent…I own a Kavent S-33 preamp that is a re-badged Vincent SA-93…not sure why they needed 2 companies selling the same stuff (Kavent is gone), but in any case it's an amazing balanced dual mono preamp with isolated power supplies on one side of the deep aluminum cladded chassis. Also, I have a good friend with one of those massive Vincent hybrid integrateds and it also is an overbuilt thing that sounds fabulous.

For years I used an Acurus DIA100 with my magnepan 1.4s. This Christmas I moved up to 1.7s and the DIA100 wasn't getting it done. Hit the want ads and bought a second hand Acurus A150. Sounds great and its got real bang for the buck until I can upgrade. Very happy with Acurus products.

I have several McCormack amps modified by Steve McCormack.  It's a great option if you're looking for SOTA performance for a fraction of the cost.

While he used to offer certain mod packages, I think it's totally variable nowadays.  Whatever your budget, preferences and associated equipment...he can make an amp tailored to you.

Another great advantage is that you never have to pay dealer markup again.  Just buy one of his used stock amps for next to nothing and have him modify it.  Then you could have an amp that would retail for $20k+ depending on what options you choose, but you only paid a fraction of that.

Occasionally, you will see a modified version of his amps up for sale, but most people hang on to them.  Your best bet is to find a used DNA.5 on ebay.  These are the cheapest to find and one of their favorite to mods.  It will also drive most any speaker and, if you need more power, just get 2 DNA.5 for monoblock conversion.

If you want to go tubes...I would say that Rogue Audio is probably under-priced and under-appreciated.  David Berning amps would also be on my list for certain applications/systems.