Hi wcc10...
I went through a similar glide path in gear mixology over the past few years. I looked at the Rotel line and in listening to various Rotel gear I appreciated the fit/finish/sheer heft of the gear, but I was never sold on the sound. I’ve run through a range of gear at home, and I have to agree with the voices speaking up in favor of Parasound in your general price range. To me, it is a great bargain overall. Looks great, and sounds excellent — very quiet (black) with proper power (I am a PS Audio Powerplant fanboy, works great).
Are you familiar with the Parasound z-line of gear? It lends itself very well to a component upgrade path, and I swear this stuff is bang for the dollar. It loves every reasonable upgrade you throw at it in terms of power quality, ICs, speaker cables,... I have NOT (but now that I think of it, I will!) used my Parasound home office z-stack to drive my Avalon Acoustics speakers so I really can not tell you how well the amps hold up to outstanding and large speakers.
Sure the z-line is low on output watts, but your speakers will probably fit well. If there isn’t enough power then you can inexpensively add a second zAmp for each channel (it’s setup to enable that on the back). The z-line really sounds excellent at your price point — PLUS: you can easily recycle (into a second small system) this gear as you upgrade... I have to say, it sounds great with a proper phono stage and good TT setup. I have driven all manner of small to mid-sized speakers (Mourdant-Short, Energy, Martin Logan, ...) with it to great success. This gear is a scaled-down and minimalist-feature version of bigger Parasound gear. ...And, you can frequently get the amp or preamp on special deals online.
I have not seen the Parasound z-line on the Audiogon listings. But I would strongly suggest punching above your retail price by looking for either a good deal on some Parasound or other gear on Audiogon. Speaking of which, I recall paying a nice price (somewhere around $1400) for a Cronus Magnum integrated tube amp that resolves and images really nicely for that relatively low cost. It does NOT have a black background, however. But it’s an analogous situation with vinyl: If you are taken by the overall vinyl sound, you will overlook the surface noise issues. The Rogue is bang. ...But it’s not as clean as other much more expensive tube gear (I ended up with Ayon).
