AES Cary Sixpacs and Silverline Audio Sonata III

What's your room size and how far are you sitting from them?

Lissnr, my room is about 6.5m to 4.5m, but it's a living room and not a dedicated listening room. So the speakers are placed in the first third of the longer side and the listening position is about 3m away from the speakers.

Hope this makes sense,
Peter

Your room is not to big and your speakers are quite effecient. (Silverline Sonata). 50 watts means very little as who knows how much drive one 50 watt amp has vs another 50 watt amp. I have a 45 watt Canary 300b push/pull amp that plays every bit as loud and dynamic as my previous 250 watt SS amp. I think it sounds more dynamic, larger scale and huge!!!!

I have also heard other 50 watt amps that lack juice and drive. I don't know your amps so I can't say for sure. My speakers are 90 db effecient and 4 ohm. They are in a larger room then yours, yet my 45 watts is plenty. Yes, I to love loud music at times.

Bill

Call Alan Yun of Silverline Audio and ask him for his advice. I did. He straight out told me for the music I listen to (rock and jazz mostly), anything less than 100wpc in a tube amp won't produce satisfactory results on the Sonata III loudspeakers, and Pass labs or Belles solid state amplification would yield the best results. My experimentation thus far confirms his advice, although there are a hundred tube amps I have not auditioned in my system, and one of them might really be magical.

Alan primarily voices and demos his speakers with a Pass Labs amplifier of significant wattage.

FWIW, my room is 20x16 and partially opens on to a 12x12 room on the back wall. My listening chair is 8 feet from the back wall, and 9 feet from the speakers. I listen nearfield.

I guess loud is pretty subjective. I play music at 85 - 90db when I consider it loud. This is the average weighting (c) on my rat shack sound level meter.

Interesting what loud is to one vs another.

Bill