I would strongly recommend buying a good used Integrated Amplifier. You could easily buy a high-powered Integrated right here on Audiogon (or ebay) for around $1,500-, including models from Krell, Musical Fidelity, Classe, Plinius and others. Some of these models put out such excellent sound that it would take big, big money to better them with seperates. This is where you need to be with your budget and even quite a bit beyond in my opinion.
Marantz SA8260 Direct to Amp
I'd like to run the 8260 directly into an amp. I'm trying to understand ipedance matching. I found an output level of 2.2V in the manual but cannot find an Ohm rating. Am I missing something?