...guess what I decided to try today....
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...by that, I mean...

This is a mirror off a post of mine from head-fi.org ... The Little Dot III+ is a pre-amp, headphone amp, and power amp.

A wider view. 

I disconnected the Klipsch's from the Butler 5-ch amp and decided to see what the Little Dot III+ had in it.  I used a iPod G5 to drive it instead of my DVD (dunno why ; it was easier? ; more easily varied music selection I guess)  3.5W in Pentode mode; 2.7W in Triode mode.  I spent about 1 minute in Pentode mode.  :o ...I sooooo like Triode mode.  And this uses a direct heated triode power tube ... talk about a throwback to days gone by!  But that played a big role in why I chose Little Tube, and I was right in choosing it.  Sweet doesn't come close to describing DHT sound.

So back to my experiment.  It was ......... well ......... errr, ummmm, interesting?  Ok, Ok, I thought "WOW" at first.  What an interesting sound.  Most notably "phase coherent" (sic) I'd say -- smooth, and you actually -felt- the pressure of the music change as phase would change in the music.  That hadn't ever happened before.  So smooth.  Soundstage was huge.  (I gotta replace my HT preamp ;) ) 

That soon became a "this isn't for me" after a while though, when I wanted 'more'.  Got ok loud, in an indoor voice; probably 100db?  Distortion was high and bass rolled off a lot though.  That obviously is attributable to the OTL design using a coupling cap made for impedance of phones, which isn't nearly big enough for an 8 ohm load.   I knew I wasn't playing the right kind of music (too much energy; too much bass).  But then I realized a series of things.
1) "Lets try this with Classic Rock".  Beatles '67 - '70.  ....nnnnnice!
2) "Hey I got two M&K Subs" ... Disconnect them from the HT preamp and plug it into the LD III+; check.  (that's the wire you see going across the bottom of the screen)  Set the subs to variable volume & set to 0db; check.  Turn on 24db roll-off @ 80hz ; check.  Turn on iPod EQ to "bass rolloff"; check.  ....ahh... THAT's what I needed 

Now w/o much bass signal going to the LD III+ I was able to put it on max volume and not get noticable distortion or much (there is some) compression on transients; there's massive compression driving a full bass signal loud.  With that now and all that bass of the M&Ks, Dang, that was frigg'n pretty loud.  Sound wasn't perfect, but it was engaging and pleasurable.  It's a successful experiment I'd say.  One I plan on revisiting many more times, not just this once.  :D