Mike, based on your power needs, associated equipment & budget, I would recommend a 2nd hand Modwright KWA-150. The last example that went up for sale on AG was asking $2888. But that was 10 months ago, so if you're patient and look around, you should be able to find one around your budget. The KWA-150 is beautifully built by a talented modder/designer Dan Wright. It is fully dual mono (ie: with separate power transformers, power supplies and input and output stages), true balanced, and as the product name suggest, has 150 watts@ 8ohms and 250 watts@4 ohms which is enough power to properly control your Maggies.
The KWA-150 sounds tube-like and has wonderful inner detail. It is also a fast amp. It was designed to work well with tube preamps (and is usually matched with Dan's LS36.5 or LS100 preamps at shows). Another cool feature is, there is a toggle on the back to switch to 'bridged mono' mode, allowing you to connect a 2nd KWA-150 if you feel you need more power or want to run shorter speaker cables later on.
Your Dealer's recommendation of the Audio Research DS 225 is understandable given the brand synergy, but the DS 225 an unremarkable class D amp, whereas the KWA-150 is a class A/B amp which sounds more like a good class A amp and is switchable between low and high bias. An easy recommendation.
The KWA-150 sounds tube-like and has wonderful inner detail. It is also a fast amp. It was designed to work well with tube preamps (and is usually matched with Dan's LS36.5 or LS100 preamps at shows). Another cool feature is, there is a toggle on the back to switch to 'bridged mono' mode, allowing you to connect a 2nd KWA-150 if you feel you need more power or want to run shorter speaker cables later on.
Your Dealer's recommendation of the Audio Research DS 225 is understandable given the brand synergy, but the DS 225 an unremarkable class D amp, whereas the KWA-150 is a class A/B amp which sounds more like a good class A amp and is switchable between low and high bias. An easy recommendation.