Dipping my toes into EL84 tubes

I owned an EL84 based amp for a little while. It was nice sounding, but not quite powerful enough for the speakers I had at the time. (They were 6 ohm 86dB.) You can check out the ST35. Might fit the bill if you don't mind picking up the kit and building yourself. Otherwise, slightly over your budget... coming in at $1,200 finished - still quite reasonable by high-end standards. Check it out, along with review at the bottom of page: https://www.tubes4hifi.com/ST35.htm  All the best!

ST-35 is a nice EL-84 amp. 

I like the ST-35's EL84 tubes in push-pull ultralinear configuration because they're more linear than a standard pentode, more efficient than triode, and naturally quick and open at the top end. It puts out about 17.5 watts.

That power ceiling means you'd better have speakers with a 92 dB sensitivity or better and a decent output impedance curve – that is, no deep impedance dips in the bass

That looks like a great little amp for the money!  I would do the kit--looks like an easy and fun build with the opportunity to upgrade the coupling caps.

One question--I don't see toroidal output transformers very often in tubed amps.  What are the pros and cons of that OT vs other designs?

For under $1000, I'd look here:

https://glow-audio.com/collections/amplifiers

Nice value for the $$ and with the Amp Two, you get a bit more power.  

Once in a while, you can find a used Decware for just a bit over $1000.  The best sounding amplifier I ever had was my older Decware Taboo.  I needed a bit more power so I sold it, unfortunately.