I originally auditioned a pair of Dunlavy Athenas with a ARC vt-100 tube amp. When i went back for a second listen the speakers were hooked to a Pass Labs aleph (i think it was a 2, about 60w) and something wasn't quite right. Re-attaching the dunlavys to the VT-100 brought back the openness and smoothed out the highs. There was no comparison the tubes won hands down. I ended up with VTL 185 monoblocks and a VTL 5.5 pre driving the dunlavies and couldn't be happier I added a ARC cd-2 andt HT cables to the equation, bought it all off this site and didn't exceed your budget by all that much. keep your eyes open for deals and focus on the glow
