Anyone listened to Aerial 9's?

Mitch2- can you tell any difference when you feed the LR5s more power? My ATI puts out 450 watts into 4 ohms;

I an mainly using them for HT and am extremely happy with their performance. I just wonder what more power would do; if anything at modest listening levels (80-85dB).

Intrigued by the LR5 as well, but they look pretty clunky and require stands, which unfortunately means they may not fly for me in a living room. Can’t seem to find a Model 9 in the northeast... 

@rlovendale

but they look pretty clunky and require stands

True, but they don’t really take up much more room than the Model 9s, which I also had on SA stands. However, with two subs, which is how I use them, they do indeed require more room if you include the floor space required for the subs.

The cabinets are maybe better than the Model 9 since I believe the LR5 cabinets were still being made in Denmark and they do look nice, if a little pedestrian if you a fan of unique shaped speakers. Each LR5 weighs 105 pounds so they are like big bricks. I have mine on Sound Anchor Custom Signature Stands (i.e. "special souped-up versions of our hi-performance 3 and 4 Post stands") which each weighs about 70 pounds so each speaker and stand combo is about 175 pounds - big monitors! They image well due to the narrow’ish face. Another thing that might be of interest to you is that they were actually designed for a variety of placement options and they have environment and treble controls that adjust the crossover for that purpose. From their literature;

"Useful Environment and Treble controls optimize the response of the LR5 to suit its surroundings, insuring correctly balanced sound regardless of room or position. It is at home on its purpose-designed stands, on sturdy shelves, mounted into a wall, or placed in custom cabinetry."

@jdlynch 

can you tell any difference when you feed the LR5s more power?

Aerial speakers like power for sure.  Mike Kelly told me a good 200 wpc amplifier should drive them, meaning 200 wpc into 8 ohms and at least 400 wpc into 4 ohms.  Most Aerial speakers are nominally 4 ohm loads and some dip down to about 3 ohms at the lowest.  I like amplifiers that double (or almost double) their output power when the load is halved and believe that to be a sign of a good power supply - the heart of most amplifiers.   

The least power I have been happy with on Aerial speakers is 300/600 wpc into 8/4 ohms.  That said, my 500/1,000 wpc Cary amplifiers do not seem to power the speakers any better (or worse) than the McCormack DNA-500 (500/900 wpc) and DNA-2 LAE Signature (600/300 wpc) amps I have used previously.  My Clayton M300 Class A amplifiers (also 300/600 wpc - in Class A, not AB) are different sounding in some ways than the others.   I also owned Lamm 1.2 Reference amplifiers which sounded quite good up to a certain point where their 110 wpc ("into 8 and 4 ohms in pure class A") sort of ran out of steam.  If somebody were playing mostly jazz and pop/vocals they may have been perfectly happy with the Lamms. 

Do not confuse having enough power with how the speakers will sound with different amplifiers as those are two different things, i.e., you can have an amplifier with enough power but still not like the sound and like my Lamm example you can get good sound but not have enough power.  My advice for powering Aerial speakers is to first look at amplifiers with strong power supplies and the ability to double or almost double power from 8 to 4 ohms (since the LR5s go down to 3 ohms, the ability to drive a 2 ohm load would also be a good sign that you have sufficient power), second make sure you have enough power to satisfactorily drive the speakers with the type of music you listen to, and finally from that group of amplifiers pick one which you enjoy most sonically.  If you like your ATI amplifier, then just keep it and enjoy it since it certainly falls within the power range recommended by the designer Mike Kelly.