This may sound silly, but I once heard a pair of NHT 2.9 (the very sam speakers you own) hooked up to a pair of Cary 300b monos, and I COULD NOT BELIEVE the sound coming out of them. Granted, you may not get much volume out of this combination, but I had a handful of CD's with me (I was auditioning DA Converters) and played them through the setup...mostly rock, and it was SO ENGAGING! I was drooling. Voices...my god! I think they had them hooked up using nordost red dawn speaker cable...I still haven't heard anything like it. But, I recently grabbed a used Audio Research VT60 for my 2.5's, and the sound is so beautiful, I sold my Bryston 3B-ST two months ago, with no regrets. I would say, having heard NHT's through all sorts of gear, tubes really make them beautiful. 'course, others may disagree. Jason Lyman Jason4774@earthlink.net