Shakeydeal

That NAD looks sweet. I’d take that all day over a two channel receiver.

Tree fiddy……

Don’t shortchange yourself with a receiver. If you don’t want to do separates, there are plenty of good integrated amplifiers. I would recommend tubes, but you should state what’s your budget.

I thought about getting on the list a couple of years ago because I’ve had a Decware amp and really liked it. But my personality won’t allow me to wait even a fraction of that time. Like you said, there are other options that are just as good or better.

Pipe Dream Then there’s this guy….

Aric Audio I can highly recommend this builder. I have two of his amps and they are glorious with lascalas, absolutely quiet as 3:00 am.

I listened to that just last weekend. Great album.

Well that’s a shame…

If it sounds good, nothing else matters….

So I haven’t listened to my EL84 amp in quite a while. I put it in last weekend and it sounded so good I left it in for a while. For a minute there I questioned the money spent on the more expensive 300B amp. So last night I put it back in. It didn’t take long to hear the results of the extra money spent. The less powerful amp actually has better bass control and a bigger, bolder sound. The 300B amp is 5x the cost of the EL84 amp. It doesn’t sound five times better, we know that’s not how this game works. Even though I could live with either of them, the improvement justifies the cost for the better (and much less powerful) amp.

It’s ok, some people want quantity over quality, and that’s certainly the theme for you. I could never live with a crown amp. Call me an audio snob if you will, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Heresy @ 96 db would be fine with a low power SET in a small room with moderate listening levels. For movies or head banging, probably not. But for lascalas and khorns, high power is wasted on them. And unfortunately, unless you are willing to break the bank on an amp, as the power goes up the quality usually goes in the other direction. It's much easier and less cost prohibitive to build a high quality low power amp. And it's with low power that these extremely high efficiency speakers shine, IMHO.

Low power will clip earlier when paired with the wrong loudspeaker. With 104 db speakers you will never clip an 8 watt amp at any level you could withstand for any amount of time. It's all about pairing the right amplifier with the right speaker. If you don't get that part right, all bets are off.

I have two amplifiers. One is 8 wpc (300B) and the other is a whopping 15 wpc (EL84). Neither one comes close to clipping in my system when cranking any music I desire. A lot of this is because of well designed power supplies. Not all flea watt amps are created equal. Once you hear one with some balls, you'll understand. I don't give two s&*ts about home theater. Not in my room.