ludimagis:
i've owned several acurus and aragon amps in my days, including the palladium ii monoblocks. aragon amps are great if you're looking for huge, gutteral power, but they are very, very neutral in my opinion. they will not give you a "laid back warmer sound" (by themselves). if you're upstream equipment is laid back and warm, the aragon's will just pass this sound along to the vr4jr with gusto. if you do decide to go with aragon, i'd recommend a used 8008BB which falls within your price range. but, as i can attest to, aragon amps are not warm sounding by themselves.