this month's Stereophile has an Audio Research integrated that they think very highly of which is priced reasonably; under $5k. OTOH it may not be quite 'tubey' enough to give you that 'change of pace' you desire.
as someone who has your same gear, i have had the same 'temptation' but have never actually scratched that itch. i was always stopped by the realization that unless i go for 'the high priced spread'....a set of used Lamm ML2.1's.....the loss of information compared to the NHB-108 would likely cause me to never actually use the Tube amp much. plus i use the Evolution BNC cables for the 'zeel' 50 ohm interface which make quite a difference too.
you might contact Ruggyboggie who has been using his darTZeel pre with tubed amps for awhile and recently added the NHB-108. the only thing is that he does not yet have the 'zeel' BNC cables so he's not yet in a position to say how the 108 with the BNC'c compares to the tube amp without them.
i still have the temptation to have a set of nice tube amps sitting there i can try when the urge strikes, but every time i get a bit of scratch it gets sucked into tt's, RTR's, or other higher priorities.
as someone who has your same gear, i have had the same 'temptation' but have never actually scratched that itch. i was always stopped by the realization that unless i go for 'the high priced spread'....a set of used Lamm ML2.1's.....the loss of information compared to the NHB-108 would likely cause me to never actually use the Tube amp much. plus i use the Evolution BNC cables for the 'zeel' 50 ohm interface which make quite a difference too.
you might contact Ruggyboggie who has been using his darTZeel pre with tubed amps for awhile and recently added the NHB-108. the only thing is that he does not yet have the 'zeel' BNC cables so he's not yet in a position to say how the 108 with the BNC'c compares to the tube amp without them.
i still have the temptation to have a set of nice tube amps sitting there i can try when the urge strikes, but every time i get a bit of scratch it gets sucked into tt's, RTR's, or other higher priorities.