I recently purchased a classic Dual 75a rebuilt Acoustic Research 6550 based Tube amp. I was going to sell it along with my Sonus Faber Grand Pianos because I had just purchased a Cary v12r Tube amp and JM Labs Mini Utopias. In a head to head competition that my wife and I held just last night the Sonus Fabers blew them away hand down. I was actually a little disappointed and suprised but the winner was clear. I know the Grands are a floor standing speaker and have a larger cabinet, but the base response from the Grands was terrific coming from the AR amp which they seem to love. It is making me rethink whih amp I am going to use as well as which speakers. I do not know your reason on looking for ss amps so my comments may be unhelpful, but I have to say the grand pianos match better with a 75 watt per channel tube amp than with the 120 watt per channel solid state that I was using them with. I was kind of scared to feed them too much power with only 7 inch drivers but they loved the AR's 75 watts even at high volumes. I also had the amp hooked straight to the speakers and they did not sound flat at all while the JM Labs did. Don't get me wrong I was actually impressed with the JM Labs and they had more base than I had heard that they did. The Sonus- AR combo was just terrific though.
