Having owned the Essence before, I would normally recommend the Atma-sphere S30 or the First Watt J2.
However, you're planning to use this in a HT environment where you may be watching hours upon hours of television, and, well, OTL and Class A solid state are typically pretty power hungry, it seems such a waste to do that just to watch the latest episode of House.
Having said all that, given the HT application and the way I personally feel about it, I recommend as a preamp the Modwright LS-100 which has HT bypass and as power amp, the Modwright KWA100 which operates in Class A/B.
However, you're planning to use this in a HT environment where you may be watching hours upon hours of television, and, well, OTL and Class A solid state are typically pretty power hungry, it seems such a waste to do that just to watch the latest episode of House.
Having said all that, given the HT application and the way I personally feel about it, I recommend as a preamp the Modwright LS-100 which has HT bypass and as power amp, the Modwright KWA100 which operates in Class A/B.