Think I'm going to try tubes...

VTL MB450 might do the trick. I would suggest if you really want to experience what quality tubed gear can do you acquire a pair of high efficiency speakers. A pair of Living Voice Avatar speakers hit yesterday at 2200; wonderful speakers and 8 watts is quite enough power for them. They are also full range and make real bass.

Speakers such as the Living Voice open you up to all sorts of great amplifier possibilities. The first watt of power is the most important watt and that is what you listen to most of the time; the rest of the watts for for transients usually.

If you really like these speakers take a look at a quality 300b push/pull tube amp. We installed such an amplifier as part of an installation for a five way horn system. The 15" woofer is rated at 85db/8 ohms. Our push/pull tube amp replaced a pair of very powerful Pass monoblocks. The tube amp controls the driver better and sounds better; no shortage of power. The other four channels of these speakers use our single ended interstage coupled amplifiers. Custom tubed crossovers are used to managed the different freqencies.

We also have found the Svetlana SV572-3 tube to be powerful and super sweet in SET mode. A single ended 572 amp will make about the same power as the 300b push/pull but it will be a true single ended amp. We have five pair of the Svetlana tubes so no concerns about having to find tubes no longer in production.