What is the best integrated tube amp under $3k ?

Any idea of where I can audition VAC, Audio Note, Air Tight or some other top end HiFi in the Chicago area? As huge as this place is, it doesn't seem to have many tube equipment dealers that I have been able to find yet.

... and a very big Thank You to you Trelja ! Your totally unselfish help in biasing my JOR is very much appreciated. The tech actually calibrated it with a 400 hz square wave and it sounds awesome. I spoke with Pierre Gabriel this morning and told him of my ordeal with the loose solder joint. I also told him about the tube upgrades and he fully approved of the Mazda 12ax7s tubes I just put in.

I have it tuned up as best I can right now, but I am the kind of guy that would love some reassurance that my JOR sounds as good as any other JOR out there. Pierre told me that they are going to look for more Jadis dealers in the USA in the near future. John, I wish you would open up a store up here. 5 million population ;-)

Mattzack2, thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it.

There's likely a VAC dealer in your area. From my experience, Audio Note is a bit more difficult to find, and Air Tight even harder.

What tubes are you running in your JOR? Once I got replaced the KT90 with KT88 or EL34 in my Jadis, I felt there was nothing much out there to compete with the sound I was getting.

I can't compare it to the other integrateds mentioned, but the Ars Sonum SE competes very well with separates I have owned from CAT, Atma-spherse, and Music Reference. Now I own Merlin VSMs for which the Ars Sonum is "optimized", but I can't imagine it would not do well with other speakers that can run on 30 watts and almost all Class A power. It is also beautiful to look at if that matters. Runs with the JJ EL34L output tube.

If your intent is to audition the VAC Avatar series of integrated amps unfortunately they are no longer in production. The only option would be to buy one used.

If you just want to get an idea of the VAC sound and want to listen to some of their amps (I don't think they make an integrated right now, although I have heard a new model might be coming out, albeit at a much higher price point than the Avatar) I'd call Kevin Hayes at VAC and see if there is a local dealer in your area.

BTW - Brian Walsh of Essential Audio is in your area and has tube equipment. He'd be worth contacting. I'll be paying him a visit when I come to town for a conference the first week of April.

Ars Sonum Filarmonia SE.