[katokaelin]

Hi,

I'm new to the the hifi world but have taken up the hobby with alacrity. I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall IVs to go with my Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2. At the time I purchased the speakers I had no idea what speaker sensitivity is. Now that I do, I realize that I have a lot of interesting options when choosing an amp. I have been toying with the idea of getting an Erhard-Audio Single-Ended Ray along with their Aretha pre-amp. The amp is only 4W/channel. I'm highly skeptical but I've been told that 4W is plenty to drive a 102db speaker and that the sound of an SE amp is amazing.

Wondering if anyone has experience driving Klipsch Cornwall IVs (or other high sensitivity speakers) with a low wattage amp. I'm also interested in experience with SE amps.

My system consists of the following:

Technics 1200G
VAS Nova cartridge
VAS SUT
Rogue Audio Triton 2 phono pre-amp
Bluesound Node
Musican Pegasus DAC
Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2

My room is 15' x 30' with 14' ceilings. It's a photo studio in an old mill. I'm often moving around so I need the sound to fill the space. BUT I've gotten noise complaints from my neighbors so...

Musical preference is all over the place. Today I'm listening to Dire Straits, Sturgill Simpson, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Tycho, Post Malone, Taylor Swift, Michelle Gurevich etc.

 

[pkcpga]

Really depends on the size of your room and volume levels you are looking for, as well as how dynamic you want them to sound. I have Forte IV’s in the Family room which is a big room 22x20 feet and they sounded ok with a 15 watt tube amp but switched out to a 100 watt amp and they are much more dynamic and a cleaner harder hitting low end.

Your room is fairly large depending on which direct the speakers are facing, to project the 15’ length or the 30’ length and those are high ceilings. Unless you are playing at low volumes I doubt that amp will do more then create background music sound. Even with 15 watt tube it wasn’t enough for my room and I tried a 30 watt classe A amp that also wasn’t able to play with clipping, so jumped all the way to 100 watts.
They are efficient speaker but also sound much more dynamic when being properly powered for the room size. In the audio store the demos used a 75 watt tube amp, they recommend I use nothing less than 50 watts up to 150 watts. But I was trying to just use amps I had at home already.