Sumptuous, lush, rich, liquid golden midrange amp?

845 SET without any reservation !
Consonance make a very sweet sounding pair of 845 mono blocks within your price limit, also check DeHavilland.

Based on your description of aural fancy I would concur with Ralph & believe that you NEED to hear an 845 or GM70 SET before proceeding any further, these big thoriated tungsten tubes exist to do sumptuous, lush, rich, liquid golden midrange AND all the rest with sublime musicality ;-))

An older CJ premiere 4 would give you the sound you are looking for. 100 W per channel.

Cary 805C

Jtimothya

I don't think so. Well, not entirely.

The EL 34s used in the thor monos are current production tubes. No Mullards, Brymars, etc. JJ’s? EH’s?

That's the thing on those particular amps. None of the other Thor mono amps sounded anything like those 30's, on purpose.

The chassis, t-former, caps & resistors, Biasing Using the 34s as Triodes instead of as Pentodes too likely helped ??

It's definitely more than just the tubes. Some of that 'magic' or 'voiceing' is in the line stage for sure, and in his bigger amps, but not nearly as much. it would also seem to me even those higher watt amps could provide more gold in the tones with older NOS EL 34s… though they’d not duplicate the PA 30s voice 100%.

Uru975

The 20/20s are what, 94db & 4 ohms? Probably dropping down some too on the imp?

Could they push enough vol so a regular conversation could not be had when they were turned up, and they didn’t need to get near max vol either - Correct?

If so, I’m impressed.

Springbok10, at any rate, if you want sweet, start with a triode amp. They make less of the odd-ordered harmonics that tetrodes and pentodes do. We describe those harmonics as 'hard, harsh' bright', etc. (Of course tubes in general make less of these than transistors)

Somehow those terms seem the opposite of 'sweet' to me...