Favorite Mid-Priced Tube Amp (ie:1k USD or less)?

[PaisleyUnderground]

Have you considered a Schiit Freya+ ? @MrCypruz gave it a “glowing” reference:

Schiit Audio - Official Thread

Schiit surely did something special here. I’ve got an $8.5k pre-amp in the house with stock tubes and the Freya+ with upgraded tubes managed to put up a good fight. It only loses on the Soundstage (and overall expansiveness of the sound) and top end refinement departments. I’m inclined to believe that I would fail to reliably pick them apart in a volume matched blind test. For reference, the evaluation tool is as follows: SR1a paired with the HSA-1a amp and M Scaler+Dave with a LUMIN U1 streame…