@jsoku Congratulations on going with the new Encores! I love mine very much. They are my forever speaker.
Regarding powering them I'm probably not going to be much help. I run source direct from my Matrix Audio Sabre X Pro MQA DAC and power mine currently with a pair of 15wpc Allnic A6000 Quad Parallel 300bxls SET Tube Monoblocks. The Encores are relatively high sensitivity at 96db albeit at a 4ohm load, but as you can see in my case, it take very little power to drive them to 94db peaks in my 20x13x8 room from my listening position 10ft away.
I'm very biased towards to amps for music and SET topology tube amps in particular because of their 3D holographic and palpable portrayal of vocal and string/wind instruments as well as incredible sound staging.
You can get pretty close with solid-state using a Pass Labs XA25 I'm told, but that over $5k.
Eric pairs his speakers with Parasound amplifiers at the shows and they always get high marks for the pairing, but again they are outside your budget, unless you possibly find them used.
You could go with an amp that utilizes NCORE Class D modules offered by numerous manufacturers. Some have better sounding input buffer boards, like Nord or Apollo Audio which even allow you to choose the overall tone you want by choosing the opamp chip to your liking. Best bang for your buck might be a no frills ncore design. If you Google ncore amplifiers you will get dozens of results. I know theirs a brand that's like $700, but their name eludes me at the moment.
I prefer NCore Class D to most Class A/B amplifiers. They tend to be very powerful and very low in distortion, but also are fairly smooth sounding. They do transients well too.
Again, for music though. Imho, nothing beats a good SET Tube Amplifier or a Class A solid-state amp like the pass labs XA25.
Are you doing full surround sound? If not, maybe ditch the receiver and look at the 2 channel anthem integrated with room correction. My friend loves his a lot. Also, that receiver is your weak link. The dacs in most midfi receivers are quite awful sounding and have poor measurements to back that up. It used to not be that way, but they really have gone down hill over the years.
Hope this helps you some. Glwys
Regarding powering them I'm probably not going to be much help. I run source direct from my Matrix Audio Sabre X Pro MQA DAC and power mine currently with a pair of 15wpc Allnic A6000 Quad Parallel 300bxls SET Tube Monoblocks. The Encores are relatively high sensitivity at 96db albeit at a 4ohm load, but as you can see in my case, it take very little power to drive them to 94db peaks in my 20x13x8 room from my listening position 10ft away.
I'm very biased towards to amps for music and SET topology tube amps in particular because of their 3D holographic and palpable portrayal of vocal and string/wind instruments as well as incredible sound staging.
You can get pretty close with solid-state using a Pass Labs XA25 I'm told, but that over $5k.
Eric pairs his speakers with Parasound amplifiers at the shows and they always get high marks for the pairing, but again they are outside your budget, unless you possibly find them used.
You could go with an amp that utilizes NCORE Class D modules offered by numerous manufacturers. Some have better sounding input buffer boards, like Nord or Apollo Audio which even allow you to choose the overall tone you want by choosing the opamp chip to your liking. Best bang for your buck might be a no frills ncore design. If you Google ncore amplifiers you will get dozens of results. I know theirs a brand that's like $700, but their name eludes me at the moment.
I prefer NCore Class D to most Class A/B amplifiers. They tend to be very powerful and very low in distortion, but also are fairly smooth sounding. They do transients well too.
Again, for music though. Imho, nothing beats a good SET Tube Amplifier or a Class A solid-state amp like the pass labs XA25.
Are you doing full surround sound? If not, maybe ditch the receiver and look at the 2 channel anthem integrated with room correction. My friend loves his a lot. Also, that receiver is your weak link. The dacs in most midfi receivers are quite awful sounding and have poor measurements to back that up. It used to not be that way, but they really have gone down hill over the years.
Hope this helps you some. Glwys