The best I have heard is with a tube ultralinear amp. I beg you to try this. The Kestrel Hot Rods are wonderful wonderful speakers. I had them hooked up one nite with the Ah! Tjoeb run direct into and Anthem Amp 1 and will tell you it was stunning. So musical. So I suggest the Anthem....or maybe the AES Super Amp. The Super Amp is a smidge out of you budget...not much...but worth it. While those speakers are sooo easy to set up to sound good...tweaking with rear wall distance and height via the spikes makes a HUGE diff....
Meadowlark Kestral Owners! - Amp Help.
I recently moved the system into a room that sucked the life out of my EPos ES12'and have ended up with a pair of Hot Rod kestrals- Definetly an improvement in the low end. But things still didn't seem quite right. I replaced my CJ MV 52 (45 watt) with an old Rotel RB970(70 Watt) I had laying around and while not as smooth, things just worked better. I guess the answer is I need more power and am thinking of getting something in the 100-150 watt range Solid State. Any suggestions? The rest of the system: Micromega Stage 2, Audible Illusions Modulus 3. Oh yeah, I'd like to spend in the $700 to $1000 range. Thanks for you input