Best Integrated Amp.

I second the Unico. Yes, I own one - but I know its strengths and weaknesses (in stock form) quite well.

The Unico fits the bill as you describe it to a 't'. Warm enough to smooth out 'bright' speakers and enough power reserve to get you boogying, especially with higher-efficiency speakers.

I have a VAC Avatar Super powering VSA VR2's
I love the sound all the good qualities of tubes
if you go SS the gryphon,asr would be good choices
the amps i mentioned don't come up used very often that in itself should tell u something

Check for a used Gryphon Integrated and look no further. I have had the Tabu At and the Tabu Century, both great amps.

I don't run an integrated amp, but I have heard a few reasonably priced models that are worth looking into. I saw a $1800 integrated from Rogue at CES that sounded terrific and met pretty high standards for construction and finish. I believe it utilized El34 tubes.

A tube integrated from Consonance, playing at the nearby T.H.E. Show also sounded fantastic and it too was pretty cheap.

I am also quite familiar with the Jolida 302b. A friend of mine is a dealer, but I think he has given up on the Jolida line because of reliability problems. He says that the current model uses output transformers that seem to be failing at a pretty high rate, while models produced before 2001 seem to hold up longer.

Classe CAP-151

For a warm, musical integrated you're going to have a hard time doing better than the Jolida 302b. I have preferred this little guy to expensive McIntosh separates.

And for a $900 list price ($600-700 used) you just can't go wrong.

Michael

Not sure of your price range. Many nice options mentioned here.

I have a Musical Fidelity A 300 solid state integrated (150W X 2) which is very well reviewed in it's stock form and can be had used here for 850-900$. They were $1700 new I think.

I recently had it modded by Tube Research Labs. The fee is $550.

The sound is now at a totally different level. Very smooth, very deep and large soundstage, great bass, and dynamics and detail. The slight edginess that was present before is gone. The noise floor is lowered immensely.
Very happy with it. It has a usable phono stage if you need that.

Good luck in your search.

Sugden Masterclass Integrated.

The Class A system puts the sound between warm and brite.
Detail without fatigue.
Quiet background with explosive dynamics.

Accuphase E530 has similar qualities with more features.

If you aren't looking the tube route you should listen to the Audio Refinement Complete integrated. Adequate features combined with a smooth silky sound.

I have had the Upscale Audio/Prima Luna Prologue II {40w/ch} in house for about a week and couldn't be happier.As you can see from my system posting,I have had exposure to some fairly pricey gear.I really like the PLII.I would suspect that upgrading the "stock" tubes would improve the width/depth of the soundstage,but nothing to throw stones at directly out=of-the box.Happy hunting-Tom.

Go look at the variety of tube intergrateds, IE Cary, VTL and others. You'll appreciate the tube sound of an intergrated tube unit rather than solid state. You have efficent and bright speakers and you don't need to addd to the brightness.

What kind of price range are you looking at? I listened to the Unison Research Unico SE last week and I was very impressed.