tubes and rock and roll, good fit?

Yes, tubes have a rock factor never incountered with SS. If you want the real crunch of a LP, then start with high power PP amps and fat sounding speakers. Bands like Tool and Alice in Chains sound awesome !! The mids just scream at ya. some purists my not like the in-your-face result, but i dig it !!

Audio Research, BAT, Conrad Johnson, VTL would all be worth considering.

Listen to Atmasphere's advice.

I owned a pair of his MA-1 monos for about a year (100 wpc). They were probably the most magical/musical amps I listened to with my speakers at that time - but only with selected music. Those speakers were 90 dB and their impedance curve dropped to about 3 ohms at two frequency points. So I was limited to smaller group or vocal recordings to hear them at their best. When I wanted to play rock, large group jazz, or symphonic music, they fell short.

I believe the two most important considerations in audio are the room/speaker set up and the speaker/amp interface.

Well I spoke with Andrew Payor about the Vtl siegfried's. He said they were a great fit. He has customers with the arrakis who are using them and love the combination. He also has a pair and loves the design. He told me his biggest dealer in Asia matches the Siegfried and Rockports all the time and has the set up in there high end show room. He gave the amps his highest rating. That was enough for me! So it is to tubes I go. Specificly the VTL Siegfied's and the 7.5 series 11.

Lucky guy!

Let us know how it turns out!