Amp for Special 40's

my vote would be 2 over 1 you mentioned

in a small room pretty much any decent integrated would work

brother in law has those w EL tube VTL Integrated, great sound.

My sense with the 40s is that the amp should have some power.

Hegel H95 is an excellent choice if you can squeeze a few more bucks. I has built in streaming and top notch quality. I've seen one on here for $1750 

On a different forum people told me that H95 won't have enough power for Special 40's, so I didn't consider them.

Some people also advised me to get Focus 20XD instead of S40+ budget amp, since S40 need an expensive amp to fully unfold it's potential :/ 

Focus XD 20 produce stellar sound. No struggle to find better amps etc, it's well tuned inside. Very, very powerful. 

I have a pair of Special 40 (6 ohm load) in my office powered by a Benchmark AHB2 (130 watts @ 6 ohms), with the LP4 pre and the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge upstream. I am very happy with this as a second system. I realize the AHB2 is a little above your budget, but it gives an idea of an amp that seems to play nice with these speakers.

julie_priest My main issue with Focus 20XD is that S40 have much better drivers (Esotar40) but I do understand that both options will sound amazing!
Also the fact that Focus 20XD is around for several years and heavily discounted these days ($4000 from $8000 MSRP) hints to an updated version coming soon.

kcpellethead Thank you, that amp looks fantastic, however it's definitely not in my budget range. I can only imagine your main system.

I love the Special 40s, went and compared the Evoke 20s and 40s and ended up with the Evoke. I am very happy with my 22xx Marantz, it does the magic for Dynaudio with anything but classical music.

From what people are saying, I'd go with the Schitt stuff. 

@rafaelg - Forgot to mention that I bought the amp used here on Audiogon for $2,100, so it’s not that far out of budget. 

Another consideration. Watch Danny's You Tube video-GR Research. He just did a look see into that speaker. He has thoughts. 

Yes, I've seen that video and to be honest I don't trust this guy. He's pretty much a salesman who tries to sell his product, and I don't think he knows more about making good sounding speakers than a company like Dynaudio.

Belles Aria is a fantastic match with S40s and is $2300 new and used around $1500 if you can find one.

I used a Belles Soloist 1 with my S40s and now use an Aria Signature. Stunning.