Best Amp to drive my Apogee Stages?

1. The Rowland Model 5 & Model 7s are getting old.
I don't believe Rowland will want to support or repair them indefinitely. Older Model 5s & Model 7s have been through many thermal cycles - being turned on & off. The output transistors eventually fail & they are expensive to replace.
I'm not biased against Jeff Rowland. I own a Model 2 & I will not sell it anytime soon. It just sounds too good to me.
2. I own (7) Murano monoblocs. These are close in build to the Rowland 501s, they have the same B&O module. These will drive the Stages, the problem is a pair of Rowland 501s used are at least $3500.00, in good shape.
3. I'm going to suggest you try an Adcom 5500. I owned 2 of these and one will output 300 watts per channel to your Stages. They only cost around $550.00 used, you can buy an Adcom GFP 750 with the rest of your budget, and upgrade to any fully balanced amp later, the GFP 750 will be good enough to use with any amp already suggested..

Loveitloud

at your place I would try to borrow some class D amplifier for a few days ...

then you will have a clear idea of what happens, I bet you will discover a new couple of speakers in your Apogee ...
this happened to me with my Infinity which need also quite a bit of current

then you can try to find something which matches with your budget ... in class D there are a lot of alternatives even a Danemark based company (I can't remenber the name now) which is selling 1000 W / 4 ohms monoblocs for less than 1000$ !!

good luck ... let us know

The Stage is a great speaker and has the best midrange after Quads based on my personal experience and thus deserves a good amp especially a tubed one. For low price solid State, try a McCormack.

I also recommend class D, even Nuforce would do well.

Having the power and control factors with much less heat, maintenance, current draw and initial cost.

Put a good tube preamp in front of them and you almost have the best of both worlds.

Unsound, I don't think Loveitloud is going to get a recent Rowland class D amp that fits into his budget of under $2000.