I have a pair of Blade 2's that I have owned since 2015. They work well in both mid sized and small rooms. I was shocked that they did not overload my 12' x 13' office. They are better in a larger room away from boundaries, but were surprisingly good in the smaller room. I have paired them with a Sonic Frontiers Power 1 (55 wpc KT-88 tube amp), Mac 6700 (200 wpm solid state receiver), Classe CAP-151 integrated, Rogue Audio Stereo 100 & Atlas Magnum (both 100 WPC KT 120 amps), Parasound Halo A-21, Aragon 3002, Mark Levinson 532H (300 wpc SS), and an Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 1 SS amplifier.
The best Solid State results have been with the Levinson and the Emotiva, which is somewhat startling considering it was $999 new and can be had for half that used. It is a 75lb 250/wpc beast! The Aragon worked well, but only through its single ended inputs. The best tube results were with the Rogue Atlas Magnum/ RP-5 preamp combo. Preamplifiers seem to alter the sound as much, if not more than amplifiers. I have used a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 SE, Line 2 SE, Rogue RP-5 & RP-7, and my Esoteric SA-50 player directly fed into the amplifiers. All combos sound different. Even changing from RCA to XLR in the same combos changes the sound.The Emotiva/RP-7 works well, due in part to the Emo's high (32 db) gain.
I would like to try the PS Audio BHK amplifiers, and after reading this thread, recent Krell amps.
The best Solid State results have been with the Levinson and the Emotiva, which is somewhat startling considering it was $999 new and can be had for half that used. It is a 75lb 250/wpc beast! The Aragon worked well, but only through its single ended inputs. The best tube results were with the Rogue Atlas Magnum/ RP-5 preamp combo. Preamplifiers seem to alter the sound as much, if not more than amplifiers. I have used a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 SE, Line 2 SE, Rogue RP-5 & RP-7, and my Esoteric SA-50 player directly fed into the amplifiers. All combos sound different. Even changing from RCA to XLR in the same combos changes the sound.The Emotiva/RP-7 works well, due in part to the Emo's high (32 db) gain.
I would like to try the PS Audio BHK amplifiers, and after reading this thread, recent Krell amps.