I drive a pair of B&W 804S with a McIntosh MC275 and love it. I used to have a Rotel 200W SS amp to drive these speakers, and at the time I was looking to upgrade amp I auditioned McIntosh MC252 (250W per channel SS) and MC275 (75W per channel tubed) with 804S, and preferred the 275.
FWIW, bass with the 275 was a lot better than with the 200W from Rotel. Let alone midrange and treble!
Generally speaking, B&W 800-series loves power and hence are usually driven by SS. I remember listening to 802D driven by $30k VTL monoblocks at the dealer and it sounded fantastic...but who would spend that much on amplification for those speakers?
Anyway, my point is with smaller 800-series such as 804S, and maybe 803S, tubes are definitely an option. I would encourage you to consider two MC275 playing as monoblocks. Of course this would not be $2.5k, but you could buy one MC275 now, see how you like tubes, and when funds permit you could buy your second 275. mC275 is also a very low maintenance amp - it is auto-biasing.
Eventually I also replaced my SS preamp with a tube pre (Lamm LL2), which I love too.
In my view, B&W aluminum tweeters and tubes play really nicely together.
Think about it!
FWIW, bass with the 275 was a lot better than with the 200W from Rotel. Let alone midrange and treble!
Generally speaking, B&W 800-series loves power and hence are usually driven by SS. I remember listening to 802D driven by $30k VTL monoblocks at the dealer and it sounded fantastic...but who would spend that much on amplification for those speakers?
Anyway, my point is with smaller 800-series such as 804S, and maybe 803S, tubes are definitely an option. I would encourage you to consider two MC275 playing as monoblocks. Of course this would not be $2.5k, but you could buy one MC275 now, see how you like tubes, and when funds permit you could buy your second 275. mC275 is also a very low maintenance amp - it is auto-biasing.
Eventually I also replaced my SS preamp with a tube pre (Lamm LL2), which I love too.
In my view, B&W aluminum tweeters and tubes play really nicely together.
Think about it!