Integrated amp decision, oh the headache

I have a Jolida 502 in my bedroom and an NAD 317 in my office. Both have great price performance and are avialable used for your price range. The Jolida sound marvelous retubed. The factory Chinese tubes do not do the design justice. A proper set of tubes is between $100-$200 based on your selections.

My Jolida was damaged by UPS when I bought it used. The weight distribution makes it very tricky to ship. Fortunately in the Bay Area there is a wizard repair guy. BTW Deborah the Jolida has become my wife's amp since I travel so much. She is also a music and tubed sound fanatic and we have spirited tube rolling discussions. Downstairs we have tube equipment costing 25 times the Jolida and are continually amazed at the quality of the Jolida sound.

On the Jolida 502, we are running matched Svetlana KT-88 with NOS selected by ear for the driver tubes. The speakers are old IMF Monitor IIIA transmission line speakers. The bass is astonishing. Our main system currently has new Melos Solist 400w each Triode Monoblocks custom made to match our Dunlavy SC-Vs. We listen in a large room to late romantic orchestral music with Sigtech room correction so we need the power downstairs