I've had a pair of SE-250's purchased new from Monarchy for a few years now. I like them. I have replaced the JAN 6DJ8 tubes with a NOS Seimans 7308 tubes with great results. My listening room is fairly small, I have a pair of NHT Model 3's along with their sub as my speaker set up. The 250's have power to spare, I probably use them in full class A mode most of the time - the music is smooth - no harshness whatsoever. Highs are not brittle and the lows have plenty of punch. They run pretty hot - on summer days you will want to fire up your ss amplifier or, turn on the AC.
Honestly, for the $'s involved, it seems like the proverbial no brainer to try them out.
The think I like about these amps is that they are very friendly to a variety of speakers and being a "hybrid" they give you some of the tonal character of a tube amp and the bottom power of a ss unit.
