@ghulamr
a few comments
you are not discovering the p3’s need more power... you are discovering synergy in tonality between components to a sound your ears like
the croft is a slightly uptilted, ’spot-lit’ piece in signature - crofts and lfd's which gene rubin successfully sells with large harbeths are synergistic as they work this magic on the larger harbeths -- which are tonally warm and need a little more zing up top and to wake them up and ss damping factor down low to tighten the bass a touch, the p3’s do not need either...
....otoh the earthquake ht amps are well known for an extremely rolled off treble, that is their value proposition (ie... earthquake!) and their sound is tuned to that end
your setup is still biased towards bright, with room, location, cabling ... what have you
what we know for sure is the metrum dac is relatively warm and tonally full, but it seems that the rest is not...
when you get a properly linear hifi amp after returning the croft, i suspect you will be back on this merry go round again
the volume knob setting you refer to is a red herring... like the sensitivity of an accelerator pedal tip-in to the movement of a car - a more sensitive pedal for the first 20% of the range of motion doesn’t make the car more powerful...
good luck
a few comments
you are not discovering the p3’s need more power... you are discovering synergy in tonality between components to a sound your ears like
the croft is a slightly uptilted, ’spot-lit’ piece in signature - crofts and lfd's which gene rubin successfully sells with large harbeths are synergistic as they work this magic on the larger harbeths -- which are tonally warm and need a little more zing up top and to wake them up and ss damping factor down low to tighten the bass a touch, the p3’s do not need either...
....otoh the earthquake ht amps are well known for an extremely rolled off treble, that is their value proposition (ie... earthquake!) and their sound is tuned to that end
your setup is still biased towards bright, with room, location, cabling ... what have you
what we know for sure is the metrum dac is relatively warm and tonally full, but it seems that the rest is not...
when you get a properly linear hifi amp after returning the croft, i suspect you will be back on this merry go round again
the volume knob setting you refer to is a red herring... like the sensitivity of an accelerator pedal tip-in to the movement of a car - a more sensitive pedal for the first 20% of the range of motion doesn’t make the car more powerful...
good luck