Sub 1k integrated?

You will be amazed how much better your speakers sound when you migrate away from your Yamaha HTR-5560 AVR unit.  The Outlaw you referenced plus the Cambridge Audio CXA81 are good ones to look at.

There’s a nice NuPrime IDA-8 available here now for $649 that I’m sure would be a nice upgrade.  Read the reviews.  Best of luck. 

My spider senses are tingling, telling me you might try and put legs on a snake. What I mean is you have speakers with a lot of very fine qualities, but they are not efficient nor will they play loud- no matter how much power you feed them. 

What you have are some very fine budget speakers. You will be smart to play to their strengths and not try and make them something they're not. If you want volume then get some Klipsch Heresy's. 

If you stick with the B6 then look for as good a tube integrated as you can find. This way you'll have quality. Eventually when you can afford better speakers you'll be careful to find more efficient ones and that will get you the volume you want. You will find by the way that a 20 to 40 watt tube integrated sounds as powerful and plays as loud as 100 watts of solid state. The Outlaw will give you nowhere near the sound quality, and very little if any more volume. YouTube darlings, the bloom goes off the rose fast. A good tube integrated is pretty much good forever.

Hmm, interesting. So glad I posted, each reply so far has given me something to ponder...

Thanks!

I will be sticking with the b6’s for now though, or to your point is that a bad play?

Save for higher performing speakers first then amp? Or build around a new amp? A question that has been posted and pondered many times in this forum and others. Emotionally, I think I am more ready to let go of the AVR right now and upgrade speakers down the line.

I am not chasing hi-end (obviously) I have three future college tuitions as bad roommates right now, I am after something entry with a respectable sound to price ratio.

Great point on the YouTube darlings too.

If you're patient, you should be able to pick up a decent integrated used at the 1K price point.  Creek, Exposure, Belles Aria, would be names to look out for.

so @millercarbon - what is your sub-$1K tube integrated recommendation?  If we skip the price then sure we can open up all sorts of possibilities but the OP framed the question.

If I am being honest, not really ready for a tube world, constantly worrying when they'll go out, if there is another matched set better than the other, etc. Maybe this isn't the experience and I'm totally naive, but my trip down memory lane with vinyl a few years ago made it obvious that I don't have the stamina for next level analog.

Details are everything. College, dorm, forget tubes. Unless you will be matriculating at Hillsdale, then I would say have your roommate build you a 300B. Typical liberal arts college, beer, there goes the amp. Or beer, there goes the speakers. If not directly beer then indirectly via beer induced volume cranking. 

Sorry, but it helps to be realistic. No amount of SQ matters once the voice coils start scraping and rattling. 

Klipsch Heresy's sound good, play loud, and fit most dorm rooms. Then if you can swing it, good SS integrated. That SA3 you mentioned will have enough power to drive the Heresy's nice and loud, but not enough to fry them when your roommate cranks em to 11, and will sound quite good. There's a lot of em out there, you can probably find some old and beat up for cheap. Might as well. If they aren't beat up now they will be anyway by graduation!

What a terrific picture you have painted, makes me want to go back to a dorm, ha ha!

But sorry, I was trying to be creative with the language, and being a scientist likely fell flat. To clarify, I am solidly middle-aged with three kids, hopefully who will all go to college at some point, so we are preparing for that financially. Hence my "good enough" and budget conscious approach to the hobby. I have been in love with stereo since my first mid-’80s Technics, and now with a bit of disposable income I am feeling like climbing at least one rung up the ladder. Still have the Technics which did witness the beer days of undergrad though, and it is faithfully serving as the garage rig with my old (vintage?) Bose 301 *edit* Series II’s.

And yes, Klipsch heresy IVs are on the long term aspirational radar.

Oh. Well in that case I do hope its Hillsdale.

Also good to know your plans. I tend to think long term when it comes to my system. This was 2004 https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm  and this is 2020 https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 A lot of the same stuff even over 15 years. A lot of new too. Pictures aren't sound but be assured huge massive improvement in sound. Slow and steady. Smart well thought out choices that last a long time beats frequent flipping. 

Anything you get will be head and shoulders better than your Yamaha AVR. The question is more are you looking for an anchor piece like you said or was that more colorful language? It really helps to know. 

Because a used amp like my Melody for example would be in your budget. And don't worry about tubes, with adult use tubes last many years. A typical amp like mine uses KT88, a set of which is under $200, and lasts a few years. Most guys change tubes because they want to not because they have to. The sound quality you get from tubes is unmatched with SS.

Any used tube integrated in your price range you will not believe how much better it will be than what you have now. Any. But if you really want an anchor there are some truly impressive integrateds in the $3-5k range that could be considered lifetime components. Or if not lifetime then long time like my speakers and turntable, or the phono stage in 2004, all in the 15-20 year range and all of which were at one time "anchor" type components for me. 

Another thing about long term, it helps to think of the whole system. If you're using hook up wire, patch cords, and freebie rubber power cords those are low hanging fruit ripe for upgrade. Something like a Creek that leaves room for better speaker cables might make more sense.  

What wire are you running now?

Running blue jeans now for speakers and interconnects

Okay well then you are on the right track. Except I would be looking at only pure integrated amps- no receiver, no DAC. Especially no DAC. The life span of anything digital is measured in dog years, one year in analog/tube years is five years digital, buying an amp with a DAC is like instant obsolescence. The idea of buying something good to build a system around is a good one, but for that to be true it has to be true long term, something digital simply never has been and never will be.

Well, haven't procured anything yet, but was able to score a pair of Focal Aria 906's, despite my earlier thinking that I would hold on to the Elacs for a bit.

Having taken this new turn, any $1k amp recommendations that would be a good match for the Focals?