Have any of you experimented much driving bookshelf speakers with your Riviera? Do you think it would be able to drive KEF LS50 Meta’s to reasonable levels?
I'm also driving a pair of bookshelf speakers with my AIC-10 and get excellent results. It's a pair of relatively old Diapason Adamantes III. They have good sensitivity (91dB), which certainly helps, yet I must say that each time I'm impressed beyond expectations by how good this combo sounds and by the ease of the Riviera in driving these speakers. Volume knob never beyond 12 o'clock. Most of the times, somewhere around 10.30 is more than enough to make it loud - sometimes just too loud - despite the size of the room (I sit 3 meters away from the speakers and there are 3 meters between the two speakers, plus 1.5 meter between each speaker and both the side and back walls).
I listen to a lot of jazz and classical music, including many orchestral pieces and, lately, quite a bit of choral music as well. And I'm always impressed by the realism of the musical scene produced by this setup. I've always loved the depth ad width of the soundstage offered by the the Diapasons. In my view, the Riviera amplifies this character of the speakers very prominently and produces a soundstage which - to my hear - sounds just immense, all the more when I compare what I get with the Riviera to the results I obtained with the few amplifiers I've owned and used to drive the Diapasons with, in the past.
The ability to drive effectively - and "magically" - not only all my headphones but also medium and high sensitivity speakers convinced me to pull the trigger on the Riviera, after a long period of hesitation, given the non immaterial cost of this toy...
For the record, while I do love the Riviera with the Diapasons, nothing beats the pairing of this amp with my beloved Abyss 1266 TC... But guess that has to do a lot also with my general preference for the pleasures of headphones vs speakers listening.