I also found myself in the quest for a new linestage about 6 month`s ago. I was running a Mac c-42/ mc352 combo into a pair of Mezzo`s. I settled on a BAT vk-51se in my quest I listened to the Mac c-2200 Aesthetix Janus ARC ref mrk II,ls-25 and the BAT vk-31se, BAT vk51se. For the money you want to spend 3K you should give the vk31se a listen, they are going used for around 3.3K. That get`s you to about 90% of a vk-51se, I also did like the Janus but they are a little hard to find used. Just my 2 cent`s David
