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
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. 
Unsuitable for MC.
Surprise surprise.

A question like that gets all of the predictable answers. ALL you can do is try it and see if it makes you happy.
Shallow. Did I not say to try the Osprey? Which is all you are saying. So no new information, just your virtue-signaling insult. Predictable, indeed.
Not everyone likes how high sensitivity speakers sound. It's not a 'trap', rather personal preference like anything else in this hobby.
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