HELP!!!! Newbie looking for a decent 2 channel power amp in the $1,000 range

@jbuhl I’ve been curious to discuss a modified ZP 90 with someone that actually owns one,was seriously considering going that route and then the product revisions came took the 30% discount and “upgraded”  to the port. Truthfully I believe the Port is WAY overpriced for what it is these days.

$275 with the discount four years ago was an ok deal but $450 now yikes!  A Wiim pro does the same job and based on what I can gather the output/dac delivery is truly outstanding folks have compared it to the Port and like it more.

question: do you use any S2 components?

No S2 units. I have 3 ZPs and one of those is moded and on my HT setup. I picked up couple more off Craigs for cheap (garage and desktop) . I am ROON based so I dont even use the SONOS software, just use the ZPs as endpoints. My main system streamer (ROON endpoint) is a Bryston BDP Pi (Raspberry Pi commercial implementation). The BDP Pi are deprecated by Bryston but sound great and can be had for $600 used.

@jbuhl Killer front end you've created for streaming, low cost high end across the board and networked; I get it very smart.  I built a Raspberry Pi Hi hat rig as a Tidal Masters streamer for my headphone amp/dac stack works ok for the cost (Volumio stinks). Migrated from Logitech Squeezebox to Sonos and believe it or not I chucked a box of mint Squeezebox gear out about 5 years ago during a clean out. I could kick myself now, my understanding it is a match made in heaven for ROON. I have a very large digital library and Sonos does cap the number of titles to 35,000 I believe. My understanding is ROON does not do that and pulls music from all your digital sources seamlessly (?) and the Squeezebox works great as the controller.

I keep saying to myself gotta check out ROON (never did a deep dive) new year new possibilities!

Happy New year you and yours!

NAD C268.$999. Seems to draw power far beyond its rating and sounds flawless IMHO.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the new Class D amps like VTV or Buckeye.  I have no experience with them, but the comments from owners are that the new Class D are exceptional-- high power, very low price.  Purifi 1ET400A modules.