Amp recommendations for Tannoy Canterbury SE

Canterburys sound good with both solid state and tubes, imo. I wonder how a bi-amp configuration would sounds with tubes on the midrange/tweeter, and solid state for the bass.

I have been listening to Tannoy GRF Pro's and 15" Monitor Golds in Canterbury sized cabinets for over 15 years. In my view tubes are not the way to go - I've had Futterman OTL's, Quicksilvers, Conrads, EAR etc high power, low power , pentode, triode, ultralinear 6550's, EL34's, 8417's, 211's etc. The ear opening experience I had was listening to von Karajan's Beethoven 5th on the GRF Pro's with 500 watts of heavily modified Perreaux 5150B - as in the only thing original was the power supply and mosfets. Even though the speakers are hugely efficient the big power amp's headroom and control over the speakers clearly enabled the relentlessness of this performance to be communicated which I never previously heard. My supposition is that high power amps provide better control over the driver, Tannoys own reference amplifier was a 250wpc mosfet amp. I have come to the view that if you value speed and timing high current solid state is the way to go, I use a 50watt high current ss amp. I would look at something like MBL's or Pass Labs.
I would also echo the views above, speaker positioning and angling adjustments of even 1/2 an inch can yield significant changes in openness, balance and bottom end.

Hornguys, thank you for your response. Appreciate your inputs on couple of points :

1. I had initially toed in the speakers as per the manual in "intensity stereo toe in" mode or "crossfiring" mode. However, yesterday I followed the "Get Better Sound" book to toe them in such a way that they crossfire 1 feet behind listening position. Is there any recommendation on what is the best approach that works for the Canterburies ?

2. Are there any tips in setting up the fine tuning settings in front of the speaker ie "Energy" and "Roll off" ? I could not get much difference between these settings; perhaps bcos I didn't play the right music that covered those frequencies. In any case, I guess these are the final tuning parameters once the speakers are dialed in, correct ?

Appreciate your inputs.

Dover and Dave72, thanks for your responses. It appears that good powerful amp is preferred to control the base. To implement Dave72's suggestion, I would need a preamp with two outputs. Nevertheless, it is an interesting point to understand theoretically if there are any disadvantages in combining solid-state with tube or rather two different types of amplifiers. My own opinion is that this may not be a good idea since both amps' will have different characteristics including gain etc which might compromise heavily on the "coherence" and/or "integration of the sound", due to lack of a better word. But will be curious to see if someone has got good results by setting up this way.

You guys gushing about the Canterbury are not helping my medium-term financial situation... AT ALL :)

Wilfredt,
I never liked extreme toe-in (i.e. crossing in front of your head). I've had mine crossing just a touch behind my head. As for the crossover controls: always ended back at 0dB flat. There are times I've *wanted* to dial the treble down a couple dBs, but those controls always seemed too heavy handed; also felt like some of the dynamics and detail were being robbed. That's on the Kensington SE, though. With the right tubes in my amp now, I get the perfect balance on 0dB settings.

Must warn you I've also become a die-hard tube & vinyl fanatic; I just won't give SS a 2nd look these days. That's my prejudice to bear :)

As for a passive vs. active preamp - with the LOMC carts I use, passive preamps are not a great option; need that extra gain. The Rogue Hera II and VAC Renaissance Mk III are excellent sounding preamps with high gain (> 20dB), though note that will be *too much* gain for somes systems, especially those with a digital front end. With your 96dB Canterbury SE, you would likely hear a soft noise floor from your seating location (with no music playing) using such a high gain tube preamp - perhaps 9 to 16dB gain would be more ideal, there.