Totem Arro efficient enough for NAD C315BEE?

The Arros should be a good match for that amp and your room size. If you get a much bassier speaker, it could overload such a small room. Since the room is small and the Arro has a rear-mounted port, you should get pretty good back wall reinforcement to help strengthen and extend the bass. Ordinarily I'd recommend more than 40 watts, but it's a small room and the NAD has good current delivery, which is important to dynamics and bass extension.

For most things these little columns should do just fine, but for movies you *may* want to supplement the Arros with a small powered subwoofer.

And don't worry if you have no preamp or sub output. I've found that many small powered subs sound just fine (and sometimes better) using the speaker connection instead of interconnect. Connect both your Arros and the sub directly to the NAD's speaker terminals and set the sub's crossover frequency to around 40-50 Hz. I've found that connecting both directly to the speakers offers a smoother, more seamless presentation *and* better imaging than running the L-R speakers through a high-pass filter.

As Pierre Sprey of Mapleshade records says:

For seamless subwoofer sound, use only the speaker cable input, not the RCA input. In addition, connect the two main speakers directly to the main amp output, not to the subwoofer's output. .... Set the crossover at the lowest possible frequency that doesn't leave a bass gap. You'll be amazed at the overall transparency you gain.

VR1s are far from anemic in bass, for a bookshelf monitor.

Clo,

I love the Arros - but not for this amp and not for mixed HT/music use. In addition to the Revel F12 listed above, I suggest you look at these:

Paradigm Monitor 7
Monitor Audio RS6

06-06-09: Knownothing
Clo,
I love the Arros - but not for this amp and not for mixed HT/music use.

Remember, this is for a 12x13 room--the size of a mid-sized bedroom. For most everything the Arro should be plenty. To augment it for HT and more dynamic music, augment it with a small sub. Even a mid-sized sub would overpower the room. Get a little 8" to 10" cube such as this Mirage, this Velodyne, or if you have the money, Totem's Dreamcatcher sub to make it a matched set.

Johnnyb53,

I was taking room size into account. The Monitor 7 and RS6 are not big speakers, but they are more efficient, their presentation is a little punchier than the Arros, and they do lower bass a little better. The Paradigm and Monitor Audio speakers will light up a little sooner and go louder with that small amp compared with Arros. Better choices for low power HT in my book.

In any case, agree a sub would help get to the lowest notes on the soundtrack.