Ralph- I truly respect your skills, expertise and willingness to share. but I think perhaps your perception is a bit "distorted" (pun intended) because your reality is atypical. You design and build OTLs so you obviously love their sound and the cost to you is a lot less than for most of us (I know that they are not free, but still...). Same is true for speakers. High efficiency speakers are generally large and expensive. If not large, then usually very expensive. I assume that you can purchase them at an industry accommodation price. So in your case, you may not have to make the same compromises some of us have to. You can get realistic live volume levels and very good amplification. Some of us have to give up realistic live volume levels and settle for the special qualities of an SET or other lowered powered tube amp driving moderate efficiency speakers. If you consider a home system as a design problem, it's a trade off among ultimate volume capability, SQ, physical size, and cost. Believe me, I understand why you love your amps driving Audio Classics. In a BIG hotel room, with 60 OTL watts they sound fantastic. And rock!!! So maybe at home, an S-30 will do. But not all of us have $25-30K for speakers. I hope that this does not sound like sour grapes. I'm not whining. But unless you have F U money, we all make compromises. All day, every day. And that's fine. That's reality.
