Help. Wife says Teres 340 Is too bright.

Thom,

Don't forget he's running through stepups. Resistor values are different than with an active MC phono stage and, as Swampwalker mentioned, tiny changes are (should be) audible.

Stepups create more complexities than active MC gain stages (turns ratio? primary side loading? secondary side loading? both?). We spent years tuning stepup loading, including pairing parallel resistors to achieve intermediate values. The quality/type of resistor matters too.

Suggestion to Artemus: try some Riken Ohm resistors in place of your cheapies. If you get the right value they might remove some edge without rolling off the highs.

****

Regarding amps and power (wattage):

Maril555 gets better performance from a 150wpc BAT than from a 90wpc p-p amp. OTOH, we get better performance (despite more difficult speakers) from a 57wpc p-p Doshi/Lectron than from a 240wpc SS MF-2500A.

There's no reason to doubt these reports, so there's no correlation between these improved performances and increases in total wattage (for the reasons Lewm explained). In a typical home environment, speakers like Artemus's or even our B&W's simply do not use the full power output of a 57wpc amp, never mind 90, 150 or 240. The improvements must be attributed to other factors.

One reason the Doshi/Lectron so easily outplays the c-j is its massively overdesigned, overbuilt and well isolated power supplies. Power supply modulation by dynamic, complex signals is a major source of sonic congestion, smearing and harmonic distortions. Zero feedback is another, as Lewm mentioned. With speakers like these we don't need more power (watts). All you get from more watts is more SPL's, and we can easily surpass 100db in our room with the power we have. What we need is an amp with a very low noise and sound floor, that supplies current instantaneously and which is not prone to going muddy when the going gets tough.

I suspect Maril555's BAT is simply better at these things than his old p-p amp. The fact that it offers 150wpc vs. 90 is interesting, but not relevant with speakers like these.

Nice job on the TT rack!!! I take back the Koetsu suggestion and change it to, get her an OTL for X-mas.

Doug,
You are right about factors, other, than just a power output, having effect on the sound of the particular speaker.
And there are an examples of that statement- 18 Wt/ch Lamm ML 2.1 SET comes to mind immediately.
But, all that said, I still feel, that the SPL, that can be achieved with a particular wattage, has very little to do with the quality of sound, reproduced by a speaker. It has more to do with a control, the power amp has over the drivers, dynamic range, such elusive characteristics, as "an ease and effortlessness of the musical presentation",
microdynamics, etc.
Speaking with Victor Khomenko of BAT about this very issue, he once mentioned driving his own Avantgarde Trios (106 dB efficiency), with TWO BAT VK-150 SEs per channel at some point, and hearing an improvement over a single 150 per channel.
My own experience confirms his position, as well.
I have yet to run into a situation, where more watts (everything else being equal), didn't make a positive change, and much less being detrimental to a sound.
Just a personal observation.

Yes, but as you say, Maril, it is more than just extra watts.

I've tried the same with my 110+ db horns. Almost to the point of having one SET channel per driver. I find I get much more presence and presentation with the Lectron. I do have another Doshi-Lectron, but they are not configured close enough to use both at this time. But keep in mind that what is happening is that there is less and less demand on the power supplies and thus more clean, clear headroom.

Kind of the same thing you're saying, but with a little more sauce.

Artemus,

Your statement that one of the differences is that you now play your system louder "because you can" raises a number of possibilities. Any comparisons made at different volume levels is almost impossible to assess. At lower levels, high frequency problems will be much less evident -- because the ear is less sensitive to high frequencies at lower levels, because the electronics are less likely to be stressed and distorting, because the room will be less likely to be suffering from excessive reverberation, and because the turntable itself will be less likely to be suffering from feedback problems.

Also, your statement suggests that you had problems with higher volume playback before making the switch that are ameliorated somewhat by the switch so that you "can" now play at a higher volume. Do you have an idea why you could not play at a higher volume before? Did you have feedback problems? Do you have similar issues (or other problems) when playing CDs or other sources? Answers to such questions will make it easier to determine where in your system you are having problems.