Bigdish, I have been on a search similar to yours for several years. This year my wife sent me to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest with the mission to once and for all find us a tube amp. We wanted the tonal quality of the best tube amps with detail, strong tight bass and great imaging. We wanted accuracy with smoothness and coherence that would draw us in to listen for hours. Last year our favorite was Zesto audio mono blocks. But at $19,000, out of our budget. (They have a stereo amp for 12k list) We heard many fine tube amps this year but one kept drawing us back for repeat auditions; Octave Audio. We ended up buying the V110 SE with the Super Black box. The box is filled with capacitors which allows the amp to handle ANY speaker load. It’s not as euphoric as some tube amps but some tube rolling with 6550 tubes will get some of that. This thing has the dynamics of a solid state amp with great tube tonal quality and best of all, great bass.
I just had to drag my wife out of the listening room to have dinner.
After some haggling I got the 110 and the super black box for under your budget.
We have used the integrated amp with some 91db floor standers and 85 dB bookshelf speakers (LS50) , works great with both.
Octave also has stereo amps and mono blocks.
One thing that makes this, or any system really sing is a Master Set as done by Soundings Hifi in Denver. A Master Set will save you thousands spent on cables and other tweaks. It’s damn near magic what these guys can do.
Good luck in your search
