Tube amps

While the WP's are nominally efficient and marketed as being tube amp-friendly, they require an amp that can produce a lot of current to control the woofers (the impedence on WP's drops very low in the bass), which rules out the vast majority of tube amps if proper bass performance is important to you.

The CAT stereo amp will definitely work (it has monstrous output transformers and can drive 2 Ohm loads). Even at used prices, however, it exceeds your budget. If you have to do it on the cheap, maybe (MAYBE) the Sonic Frontiers Power 2 will work (Power 3 monoblocks would be better), but I have not personally heard that amp on Wilsons.

The safer bet, due to the WP's current requirements, is a really fine solid-state amp. The Rowland Model 2 has a pleasing midrange, very high transparency and great build quality, and assuming the rest of your system is up to the task, sounds particularly good if used with the optional battery power supply and run balanced.

While many tube amps can make sound come out of WP's, few can control its woofers properly -- you need to be very careful pairing a tube amp with those speakers.

A few comments in response to the above posts ...

I owned a VAC Renaissance 70/70 Mk. III stereo amp and have owned continuously in my main system for the past six years VAC Renaissance 140/140 Mk. III monoblocks. Even the stereo 70/70 is a very powerful amp that can drive 2 Ohm loads (it is totally dual mono, all the way down to separate power cords and on/off buttons), and all Renaissance amps have very high quality output transformers and beefy power supplies, which are the two things needed for high current delivery. That said, I respectfully beg to differ from the above post on one crucial issue: while the Renaissance amps do have a variable feedback control, if you have to use it, then buy a different amp. Triode amps don't sound right when run with feedback (or more accurately, they sound like just another amp when run with feedback).

As for the PrimaLuna, not even their monoblocks will work properly with WattPuppies because, at 37 lb. per chassis, they do not have anywhere near the kind of output transformers and power supplies required to drive low impedences properly. VAC's Renaissance amps weigh 135 lbs. each and CAT's amps weigh 192 lbs. each for a reason -- very heavy-duty, high-quality output transformers and lots of power supply capacitance. With the possible exception of Antique Sound Labs, all of these cheap Chinese tube amps are indeed too good to be true.

With speakers that need a lot of current like WattPuppies, it is possible to do solid-state amps on the relative cheap and still get good sound and proper bass control. With tube amps, however, there is no way around spending a lot of money because the output trannies and power supplies needed to do the job are extremely expensive (for example, the 70/70 cost $14,000 ten years ago and the CAT stereo amp costs about the same).

Will a given tube amp work on a given pair of hard-to-drive speakers? If it takes two people to pick it up and it costs as much as a new Honda Accord, the answer is yes.

Not to belabor the issue, but Kevin Hayes is VAC and Dennis Had is Cary. The feedback control was included on the VAC Renaissance amps more for marketing than anything else -- even 1 db. of feedback takes away the magic on dynamic-driver speakers (feedback can help with stats, however).

PS - It is my understanding that the top BAT tube amp (the "SE") is a very fine amp -- I was too busy reacting to the idea of a cheap (PrimaLuna) to modestly priced tube amp (Cary V-12) on WattPuppies to notice that BAT was one of the listed choices.