Best value amplifier under or near $6K


Does anyone have some thoughts on what they consider to be the best amplifier under or near $6K? It could be an integrated amp, power amp, mono blocks, solid state or tubes.

It/they would be used to power Wilson Sophia’s or similar.

Just FYI my current amps are the
• Rotel RMB 1075 (5 channel power amp 120W per Channel into 8 ohms)
• Acoustic reality (IcePower optimized) 1001-REF mono-blocks (500W per Channel into 8 ohms)

Thanks
James
jmjohnson
depending on the room size and listening levels you have a lot of choices in that range.

FWIW.. in a medium size room, 100wpc or so +/- ought to work pretty good on Sophias... and I'd opt for tubes.

Gary Dodd is making some 150wpc mono blocks or was... auto biasing too, even with a cap upgrade you should come out under your budget.

Or you can look into getting a pr of his 120wpc self bias monos with cap upgrade like I have, and be under $3K for the pr. Retubing is cheap too at <$300 for both amps using some NOS tubes and great sounding new issues of EL34!

They are outstanding amps. Just outstanding... and probably why they don't often come up for sale... and go quick when they do usually.

otherwise, in SS-land, if you could find a late model BAT VK500 w/BAT PK. in fine shape... there's a really nice amp. Twin monos... one chassis. heavy and runs hot but a real power house work horse pr of amps with a bent towrads a tube ish sound.

Owned both... loved both. Still got my Dodds.

lastly, each time I saw Sophias... they had big ayre monos running them. Not bad really with that setup, but with a tube preamp they'd sound better I'm sure. I feel Wilson's in general need tubes in there somewhere... but that's just me.

Good luck.
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I would take a serious look at a used Asthetix Atlas amp, it is hybrid with tubes and SS technology. New it is $8k.
If I was spending that kind of money on amps, my audition list would be: Arion Audio RS 500, Odyssey Audio Stratos Mono Extremes (full upgrade), Butler Audio TDB 2250, Moscode 402Au (now on sale). I've heard various versions of all these amps, and they are all excellent, IMHO.