Tannoy Stirlings on the way!

"“The Stirlings are rated 91, which in my room should make the Zen sufficient on the wattage front.”

I would not recommend any amp with <30watts in pure class A. Bring in the Zen, you’ve got MC152 on hand for comparison. No doubt you would appreciate tube’s rich harmonics and intoxicating mid-range through Stirling’s but you may crave for more power in the low end region. 

It’s a journey you will figure it out :-)"

Trent probably isn't still thinking about the Zen amp, but I'll chime in...

I came across this thread as a result of wanting to read about the Sterlings. I own the SE84UFO2 and have been looking at a "final" speaker choice. I've had four different sets of speakers connected to the little Zen, and I've done some tube rolling.

Currently the speakers are two pair of stacked Large Advents, wired in parallel. I'm in a pretty small room (~10'x11' w/ 9 foot ceiling) with the equipment along the long wall.

Depending on the gain of the source unit and/or preamp, the Zen can play the Advents plenty, plenty loud.  DECware has a trial period.  

The Sterlings are a bit more sensitive than the Advents and my *guess* is more efficient.  I would be very surprised if it weren't a good match. The Zen is a great little amp and punches way above its output, weight and cost.

Hey, thanks, @edunbar. I still like the idea of trying a Zen amp.  I'm just not comfortable doing business with a company that doesn't answer its email.

I believe I mentioned this, may be redundant, but I auditioned the Sterlings with a 20wpc Luxman class A integrated and they sounded beautiful and provided plenty of volume in a room much larger than my 12.5 x 14.5' room.  

I purchased a Line Magnetic 211ai  from a fellow AGer which delivers 16wpc in triode and 32 wpc in ultralinear. Once received I will get back to you regarding this combination. 

Guys, this is a great post! I have Tannoy Canterbury SE's, using aDecware Zen Torii Mk III, 26 wpc, AVA Transcendance 8+ preamp.The tone and detail are magical! I do love power music though, andat 96db efficiency you would think they would perform well in my rather large living room...About 5 years ago I was concerned that maybe the government was going to render tubes too expensive if available at all... I talked to Klaus at Odyssey Audio about a Stratos amp and he said he could bias it intube fashion so I ordered it. He warned me it would take a long time to break in and he was right. With the Ayre break-in cd I would try it every week and hated it! Finally it came to sound like a dance club, and two weeks later it showed me the finesse that I require. 6 months! If I had more patience I probably could have tamed it in 6 weeks...Now Beethoven's Ninth, Tool, TranSiberian Orchestra and Nightwish
come through perfectly, 140 wpc.

Well, the LM211 has plenty of power for the Sterlings in my 12.5' x 14.5' x8.5' room. Used it in both ultralinear and triode mode. Thinking I like the triode mode better. Was listening to jazz. Not knowing the non linear aspect of the volume control on the LM however I have not used it beyond 10 o'clock.