What amp $1000 for Rockport Tech Mira Mon?

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The ARC suggestion has led to some research. There are a lot of letters in the names of AR amps. VT-, D-, VS-, etc. Can anyone give a link to a description of what these indicate?

Calling Andy is a good suggestion. I've been in his workshop a couple times and he has played some great stuff. Last time it was Hyperions driven by Mark Levinson 33s with the Gryphon CD player.
The only hesitation there is that the system should be built gradually. Maybe someday, I'll get a really fine amp, but I'll be content with a good one right now. Andy isn't in the business of giving advice on what would be second best - or third, or whatever my budget is (probably quite a bit further down). But I'll call him and see what he says.

Re: Pass Labs Aleph 5
I did some reading on this one. I don't understand why a Class A amp that consumes 300 W would not double to at least 120 into 4 ohm. The Mira Mons are 6 ohm, so it seems that whatever I choose should be able to maintain voltage at least at 6 ohms... not sure, though.

I called Andy. He was very kind as always, but he didn't have any recommendations in my price range.

I'm just curious: What specifically did he recommmend?
-Kurt_tank

He basically said that he didn't have any personal experience with units in the range I'm talking about, so he didn't want to speculate." I didn't push him.

... get financially creative. You committed yourself to this path once you purchased those speakers. In the long run, you'll be happy you did the right thing now. Best of luck.
-Phaelon

haha interesting response. I love it!

After the Shema, the theme of my life is probably, "Everything has room for improvement." I will upgrade in the future. If I spend more now, where will be the fun in the future of upgrading?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Right now, my top runners are:
a VT-100 here on Audiogon - are Gold Lion KT88's really an upgrade?
A Bel Canto S300iu Integrated (I like the USB input) (recommended by the firm selling the Miras) - this one depends on the price. But he would do this as a demo, so it might be good.
An old Classe. There's one on Audiogon now.

While looking for an Amp, I found a VT-100 MkIII for a good enough deal that I should be able to do a turn-around if I don't love it and not lose anything.

The VT-100 arrived today, so, more to come . . .

It took me a while to get the thing extricated from the two boxes and plastic wrap. Then I removed the top cover, opened the foam-wrapped vacuum tubes and seated them. After finally getting the top cover back on, I hefted thing onto the table I'm using for an amp stand and on the way over to it, something metal slides inside! That's weird. About this time my parents came over. So we took the top cover off and eventually found two washers sitting in the bottom of the unit. Well, "I'm glad I found that before I turned it on," I thought. We looked around and couldn't see any similar washers anywhere in the unit. Weird. Then I decided we better make sure there's nothing else. So two of us picked up the unit and tipped it in several directions. Sure enough, a small click-tinkle of metal was heard coming from the right side of the unit. So we took the side panel off. There was an inch long bolt - well, an inch of a longer bolt - with a nut on it sitting on the circuit board! I'm really glad I found that one!
So now I have a broken bolt, a nut, and two washers loose in my new treasure. After looking more, I found that there are four bolts that mount the main power transformer. One broke off. After assuring myself that all the pieces associated with that bolt were accounted for, I hooked up the amp, powered it up, and . . .

owhw-howhwh . . . that's nice.

Listened to several familiar pieces and sound is lovely.

I'll do some more listening with my wife tomorrow.

Now, I suppose I need to replace that bolt . . .