Whats with the Watts ??

03-21-08: Silver911 said:
"I play guitar. I have two amps I use - both are tube. I would never consider using SS. Sound is night and day to me so go figure that I seem to lean towards SS in home audio. One amp is 40W and the other is 50W. Both are very LOUD. Is there any general correlation I can make between these and the wattage I need for home audio or is it apples and oranges?"

Don't equate hi fidelity tubes with guitar audio. I play guitar also and my amp arsenal includes an Alessandro Italian Greyhound amp for jazz guitar. Even though it's a "clean" amp, it's distorting when I play guitar. You don't want that in hi fi.

With your large room you'll need to choose an efficient speaker to get the volumes you need. I'm kind of a high-watt guy, chosing solid state for hi fidelity amplification and my speaker choice reflects that (Vienna Acoustic Beethoven Baby Grand). Someone else will have to suggest speakers that work well with something like a 50-watt, or less, tube amp. (Maybe Emerald Physics??)

03-21-08: Silver911 also said:
"Dave - Budget is $10-12k"

You can put together an excellent system with that budget. Here's how I'd allocate the money:
Speakers $2k to $4k
Integrated Amplifier $1k to $3K
Digital Front end $200 to $500
Turntable/cartridge/phono preamp $3500
Interconnects and cables $1000

Notice that I gave you lots of wiggle room. Find the speakers first (focusing on efficiency and sound) then the rest of the budget will kind of line up.

While you're at it, listen to SS driving less efficient speakers. If you like full bass with impact and control, combined with smooth mids and crystal highs, this is the way I went.

I'm not anti tube. My headphone amp is a single-ended, class A, Woo Audio WA6. That's a perfect application for tubes, since headphones need only tiny power. Also, my phono pre-amp is tube (Pro-ject Tube Box SE). My speakers need high power and a high damping factor, hence I've gone with a SS Conrad Johnson CA200 control amp.

Happy hunting buddy. Hopefully you've got a great dealer or two to help you hear what's possible.

Dave

One could easily devote months, even years to figuring out the power game (it's marketing). I suggest:
1. stay away from exotic products that you, personally, have not lived with.
2. start with a popular amplifier (and speaker for that matter) that one can easily resell.
3. the most popular size of solid state amps have about 100-125 watts and will drive most speakers well.
4. Few of us get it exactly right the first time, so expect to trade within a year.
5. All systems are flawed, but we can put together stuff that we enjoy, and that's the point.

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to provide me direction and advice. Every comment has been more valuable than you know. I listened to three speakers yesterday that I really enjoyed – Dali Mentor 5 (88db), Totem Forrest (87db), and Magnepan 3.6 (85db). The dealers did not have any other Dali or Totem models and I would have liked to give them a listen. These two sounded “similar” to me. When I first listened to the Magnepans, I was “wowed”. The music separation was incredible. But, poor recordings sounded poor and they seemed to prefer certain music genres over others. They were played through an AR SD135 amp and AR SP17 preamp. But, they sounded much better with the AR HD220 amp, but that is really pushing my budget… Anyway, back to the wattage theme of my thread…. It seemed as though I needed to increase the volume on the Magnepans to get the best out of them. I’m a quick learner, and what I’ve learned here is that these speakers are not very efficient and more wattage is needed to drive them. However, does that also mean that I need to listen at louder volumes?

Silver911, you will find that the Forests have a tremendous sense of aliveness at low volume levels. I used a Krell400xi and they LOVED IT!! Remember, room size is a factor and current from the amp.

Planers (I own electrostatics) are exotic products and each type of planer needs special consideration. Maggies are inefficient and also must be played louder than electrostatics to satisfy most listeners, but electrostatics have volume limitations and present a capacitive load which makes them incompatible with many otherwise excellent amplifiers. Either stay away from planers or be prepared to mould you entire system to their needs.