I think if you want a good choice without taking too much risk, look at the Project Ember amplifier from Garage 1217. The shipping costs is not too bad and it is a very flexible and powerful hybrid amplifier. It will also leave you with more pennies to spend on a few valves that allow you to tweak the sound. Pair it with a transparent and neutral DAC and you should be good to go.
I've personally gone from the Project Sunrise 2 to the Emotiva Mini-x and I definitely prefer the sound of the Emotiva amp, but my current PS Audio NuWave DAC is not such a good combination with the Mini-x, due to its obsessiveness with trying to be neutral. I think the Mini-X can benefit from a more musical DAC. The additional power the Mini-X has is definitely noticeable with the HE-500s.
I am actually trying to figure out what to do with my setup as well. I kind of miss the compactness of the Project Sunrise 2 and Audioquest Dragonfly I had, so I am thinking of buying a Project Ember and combining it with the Resonessence Concero HD as a long term solution. This was from scrapping my initial plans of getting the Audio-GD NFB-10ES2. I can also get the Asus Essence One MUSES edition here for around $750 which seems like a very good DAC/amp solution. Also have a Silver Poison cable inbound on of these days, but have to make up my mind whether I want a balanced or single ended cable... *thinking* --> too many possibilities!!