Is all the hype warranted

I've owned three Decware amps and still have the 2.3 watt UFO with Omega jr. 8 speakers in a rather small office. For the money and before the insane lead time they were a good place to begin in the low watt set world. As silverfoxvtx stated, the Aric audio stuff is a great option for a bit more $$. I have the Aric 300b and preamp and it's another level altogether.

I would find it very hard to describe a triode strapped pentode as a SET, but we all have different perceptions.

It’s solid gear and reasonable value. Nothing more, it isn’t going to slay any audio giants. Leben, Shindo, Audio Note....throw a dart at their respective catalogs and you will be rewarded. I like Steve and what Decware does...it’s just a well engineered, well built product.

I had a Decware Torii II on a pair of klipschorns and it was magical. Sold the khorns for a pair of Spatial Audio X3s and the amp fell right on it's face. With a manufacturers claim of 96 db sens., you would think it would have worked. But it didn't. Clipped on any dynamic recordings.

Sensitivity specifications from manufacturers cannot really tell you about how easy or hard it is to drive a speaker.  Most often, supposedly compatible high efficiency speakers fall flat when it comes to real world capability.  But, the opposite can be true too.  You will find a lot of indignant postings on the web about how Audio Note cheats on their rating of their speakers and that they are really only 92 db/w efficient or even less than that.  While this may be true, if you connect their speakers to low-powered amps they will sing beautifully.  My local AN dealer shows off the AN-E speaker with 6.5 wpc Audio Note amplifiers.