What s the best Class A integrated tube amp over 80W

Hello Chungjh, if I were to tell you, you probably wouldn’t believe me or it.  I’m assuming because I didn’t, but learned the hard way. Spent a ton of money and got me almost there: But not to where my system was perfect.  Now I currently have 3 setups where they sound perfect to me.   What am I talking about?   Older items.  People, including myself discounted older items because in my belief, there couldn’t  be any way something older could sound better than something new-  I needed to learn.  I’ve listened to a lot of “state of the art” current products and many of them fall way short of some of the classic designs.  I have many great tube amps to recommend that are a little old but are truly killer. Do you want my advice? Been in this hobby for 30 yrs.   I’ll just leave you with 2 different sounding amps but extremely fine items. Conrad Johnson Premier Four (100 watts)
Audio Research VT-100 (100 watts). 

@lowtubes.   That is what I was thinking. I am trying out an old CJ Premier 12. Just got Svetlana 6550 NOS tubes for it. Unfortunately, fuses on the bias pot for my ESL speakers went out. I will report back once I am set up again.

Hello chungjh, you are on the right track. For the money, you can’t do better than what you did. And the 6550/KT88 tube design should sound fine on Electrostats.  From my memory, the Premier 12s have a hardwired power cable. That may be the only issue limiting your options to tweak the amps.  But those amps are beautiful, powerful, and gorgeous sounding. I have a very big collection of amps going back 30yrs to current products products and I can honestly say that sometimes my vintage items outperform my more current stuff.   For my systems, I stock up on fuses so my systems are never down for long.  

i would agree that an arc vt100 series 2 or 3 amp would be excellent, and makes no apologies to many newer tube amps that are multiples of its price presently

brilliant, powerful, wonderful sounding amps... not super tubey in a rolled off romantic sense but great imaging, extension, bass control (for a tube amp) and midrange magic

i have tried cj tube amps in the past, they are a touch more romantic than the arc's and substantial weaker in terms of bass output and speaker control

Audio Research LS 22 preamp and Audio Research Classic 150's this combination drives my Martin Logan Quest Z's better than anything else I have tried in my 50 years of hifi!  Obviously not an integrated but why bother?
I have been using these uninterrupted since 1995 with only occasional tube changes.