Most musical stereo tube amp under 5K..

You can buy MUCH better sound than VTL. VTL are great for power, but I have always had a problem with the way they sounded. My opinion is that they get worse as the amount of tubes increases. Becoming too hard to meld all of those tubes into one convergent sound. If you are buying a tube amp in search of the magic of tubes, my advice to you is to pass. I have found many superior sounding(to my ears, of course) tube amplifiers. It all depends on you, the music you like, and your speakers. Based on your speakers, I would suggest looking into Air Tight, Cary, Jadis, Quicksilver, Rogue, or VAC. The title of your thread says your price point is $5K, but the VTL you are looking at is $2300. If your ideal price is on the low side, look into Rogue. A little higher brings you to Quicksilver. And, if you are closer to the $5K, consider the Air Tight, Cary, Jadis, or VAC. On this list, you will get what you pay for.

Sutts, "Amazing when I think about all the amps I have been through since originally posting this..."

Haha, me too! Funny, I began talking about Jadis and Quicksilver, and after more tube amps than one would would believe, that's (and Dynaco) where I ended up. Same thing with speakers, after having more loudspeakers than any wife could bear, I wound up with mid-1990s Fried and Quad ESL57 - two speakers that make music and get the tonality right. There are a lot of outrageously expensive loudspeakers on the market today, but so very, very few actually sound good.