Aaron, I have a deal you may be inclined to ponder. If you will come to Plant City in a few weeks, you can take my Quicksilver KT88 monoblocks and Quicksilver line stage preamp. Try these out for a month or so and if they appeal to you, they will be a bit less than your budget. If not, bring them back and try something else.
I have had this gear for 20 years and have paired this setup with dozens of speakers from Magnepans to Klipshorns. I am not actively selling but I know you and these no longer get much use. I use vintage McIntosh for the Klipshorns and a Heresy in 3 channel stereo (magical) and use a Powernode with my Zu speakers. I think I am going to settle on these two systems for a while. That leaves a lot of electron manipulators I have managed to accumulate over the years lying around unused.