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Raven Osprey vs Octave 110 with low sensitivity speakers

I’m wondering if anyone out there has experience running the Raven Osprey into low sensitivity speakers. I have a pair of Boenicke W5’s that are some of the most amazingly life-like speakers I auditioned in the hunt, and with breathtaking soundstage—in an amazingly small solid wood cabinet. The price you pay is that these 4 ohm speakers are extremely hard to drive: 83-86 dB sensitivity—and I have them in quite a large, open room. Right now they are driven by a Parasound Halo integrated which does a fantastic job in powering them, but I’m in search of even more resolution and detail, and also did want to give tubes a try. My choices are used Octave V 110 SE vs Raven Osprey. The Octave definitely has the power, but I’m told might not be quite as resolving in the upper registers. The Raven Osprey is a lower power unit, but does have the subwoofer bypass that allows me to take some of the load off of the amp (a digression on Boenicke customer service: Sven Boenicke was kind enough to personally go through my room characteristics and set-up to advise on speaker placement and sub integration—although he seemed a bit sad that I’d risk corrupting his sublime bass characteristics with an outboard!). The Octave is a known, the Raven would be unknown since I can’t audition and would have to deal with the hassle of returning/restock: is it just asking too much of the Osprey to power these little beasts? Is the Octave a no-brainer?
feliks
mofojo
2,301 posts
 
I have heard that Octave and it is sweet. I've never heard the Raven. I did hear the Octave driving some low eff Dyn Contours and it was very sweet. Handled them wonderfully with no problems at high levels in a large room. 
feliks OP
14 posts
 
MC, I am chuckling— I swear, I KNEW you would reproach the speaker choice! But mofojo makes me feel better...and just saying, the Boenicke’s seem to defy the laws of physics: that sound from that box?
willgolf
936 posts
 
I have a ton of experience with Raven.  My advice to you would be to call Dave Thomson or James Connel at Raven.  Dave knows so much about the relationship between Amplifiers and Speakers.  Dave is the brains behind the Amps and James is the brains behind the Raven speakers.  
cymbop
315 posts
 
Feliks, no reason not to try either amp.  Personally I use a tube amp on speakers not meant for tube amps, and I'm in heaven every time I listen.  You can do it if you're willing to accept tradeoffs.  In your case you'll get "tubiness" and liquidity and the imaging that you're probably lusting for.  What you'll not get is earth-shattering bass (which isn't in the cards for that Boenicke anyway) and you won't have incisive punchy transients at higher volumes.  
mlsstl
1,438 posts
 
feliks -- how loud do you listen in terms of dB level? (Forget the subjective terms of "loud" and "moderate" as those mean different things to different people.)  Get yourself a sound level meter if you don't already have one. Power and loudness are in a logarithmic relationship. This means that once you get to a certain volume you can run out of power very quickly since each 3 dB increase in volume requires double the power.  

I use a Schiit Aegir which has 20 watts a channel (8 ohms) and very easily drive my 88 dB sensitivity speakers to my desired max average volume (80 to 85 dB, C scale) with plenty of headroom. When I first got the amp I used to VTVM to monitor the amp's output to see if I was running short of power and discovered the combo was just fine for me.  

That's the key -- find what works for you. I realize there are a lot of members of the "more watts is always better" club but that's not the only way to do things. 
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