Try and hear a Maggie 3.6R (thought they are probably slightly over your budget and don't fit your amp requirements, but that's what you get for posting a question on Head-Case ). You might like it you might not. I think if you're going to spend that much money you should at least get a taste of planars.
Needs moar jazz discussion!
Joe Harley posted a pic of the master tape of Hank Mobley, Roll Call
Looks like Music Matters is really digging deep to find a bunch of Hank Mobley material
Since this seems like the mini UltraAnalog discussion, I'll go ahead and ask, does anyone know if Dan Lavry designed the UltraAnalog D20400A DAC? Someone "in the know" has said this.
I'll probably message him to confirm, but thought I'd stir something up here first