Ears hurt when listening after changing speakers

Don’t know anything about a Paavo amp??? but having the option of switching amps, especially to a good quality soft-clipping tube amp, should help troubleshoot at minimum with those speakers I suspect. Those speakers are speced at 4 ohms though so that could make them a somewhat challenging load for many amps.

Thanks to all. I was using Paavo XA 160 amp with Audio Research LS27 preamp. Switched amps to VTL S-200

Are you talking about listener fatigue (can't/don't want to listen for very long) or actual physical pain?

reduction in spl vs seating distance is almost perfectly linear with panel speakers and is almost exponential with point source speakers. Dispersion in the room is also different.

What I’m talking about is the idea of setting listening levels with a standard volume pot while standing and then moving to the listening position, vs adjusting while in the listening seat.

The experience of changes in sound levels while moving around the room is notably different in the two driver technology types.

Are the Rockports new? You love the Rockports but they hurt your ears?

I would observe in general switching from planar or electrostat speakers like Magnepan and ML (very easy on the ear) to large dynamic speakers like Rockport alone is a big difference that one’s ear’s may not be used to and find somewhat fatiguing...definitely much different which may be good or bad depending on the listener.

Not uncommon that a major change in speakers causes a ripple effect leading to changes with gear back upstream to get things right again.

It could be that other tweaks/changes might be needed to get a more relaxed sound out of the new combo. Tone controls might be handy.

Are the tweeters pointing directly at your listening position? If so changing that might help.

If grills are off try putting them on.

Like mentioned above, it could be that the new dynamics are not for your ears in which case either listen at lower volume or maybe consider adding a dynamic range processing device to allow you to go louder without hitting uncomfortable peaks. dbx devices used to accomplish this, there are probably good quality digital processors available today that can do it much better.

Power conditioning might help and would be worth a try if not in place currently I would say.

Are your wires shielded? That is a good safeguard to avoid possibly picking up noise that adds to fatigue.

Just some ideas....

Also possible your ears will just adjust.... give it some time before doing anything drastic.

I'm wondering if the problem may be caused by ultrasonic frequencies the Avior is able to reproduce but the other speakers were not able to reproduce.  The Avior's frequency response is spec'd at 25 Hz to 30 kHz (-3 db), and Stereophile measured the similarly spec'd Avior 2 as actually having a small peak at 30 kHz, that being the highest frequency for which they measured frequency response.

What electronics are you using?  Perhaps the amp is not happy with the low impedance of the speaker at ultrasonic frequencies.  For the Avior 2 Stereophile measured an impedance of about 3 ohms between 20 kHz and 30 kHz, and about 3.5 ohms at 50 kHz, although impedance phase angles were benign in those regions.

Regards,
-- Al

Interesting problem. My guess is you are actually playing the Rockport louder for some reason probably a psycho acoustic issue. You would have to look at the frequency response vs the other speakers and compare actual sound pressure levels which is useless advise because you can't do it without the other speakers and measuring equipment. 
But, ears hurting is not a good thing and you have to avoid that if you want your hearing to last. 
You can play around with positioning and room treatment or get a room control system that will allow you to play around with the frequency response. You might find that a notch filter at 3000 Hz helps.

Mike