W4S ST-1000, How Loud Should It Play?

Perhaps the DAC has some sort of safety volume limiting feature enabled.

I'm sure the 5V output rating for the DAC-2 is the sum of the balanced legs. I suspect the 2.9V sensitivity for the amp is per leg as well when using the balanced connections. (Kudos to W4S for the sensible sensitivity rating.) Still, I'd expect 2.6V/leg into that amp to drive those speakers way beyond their power handling capability.

when i first acquired my ice power amps, and listened for the first time, i was totally disoriented compared to my prior well reviewed amp, a mf a3cr. i turned up the volume and little seemed to happen other than the music seemed to expand but only seemed slightly louder, similar to what is often described with better tube amps. icepower seems similar to tube amps in regards to how they go louder. its a very good thing actually. i doubt i could find many amps out there capable of driving my ohm 5s to the max like ymy 500w/ch icepower amps do. granted the bc's have a beefed up power supply compared to wyred but most reviews i have read leave me to believe the 2 sound more alike than not.

Are you running balanced or single ended cables?

Almarg- Thanks for correcting the impedance. I'm looking at this a little differently. I'm thinking a 170W speaker should be at maximum power at well less than half volume level.
Ciphercomplete- Thanks for that info. And I think you hit the nail on the head. The 5V output should be driving the amp to full output well before maximum volume.
Mapman-I tried talking at normal volume levels and had no problem hearing.
Demianm- I agree. My amp should be playing louder.
Mafgan- I'm not looking for more volume, I'm just wondering why it's not there.
Daverz- I don't think there's a limiting feature anywhere. When I talked to W4S they didn't mention any.
Mapman- That might be part of it but I don't think it explains all of the discrepancy.
Face- I have balanced cables from W4S.

I took Russ69's advice and called W4S. I got kind of a conflicting answer. On the one hand the guy I talked to has the exact same set-up with speakers of similar sensitivity and he also has to turn his pre-amp up quite a bit to play loud. But on the other hand, he agrees that the 5V pre-amp output should easily overdrive the amp. So I am back at square one. Well, almost. Thanks to all of your help I have a better handle on what's going on. So thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

is there a high/low gain setting on the preamp? How about the amps, do they have a high or low power setting?

When I tried some Crown amps as an experiment on my system, they were rated at 300watts per channel and 600 watts bridged. They did not seem that much louder than the tube amps I was using previously.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life