Do I have enough power?


I have a Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum with KT120 tubes, and I'm curious if this amp will provide enough power for a pair of Totem Mani-2 speakers. If anyone has any experience with these, I'd love to hear your opinion of this pairing. Thanks.
rossbernstein
I think Bdgregory is right, the answer is....maybe. I was driving my Mani-2's with a Cary CAD-120S Mkii which was putting out a rated 120 per into 8ohms and it sounded wonderful, perhaps a little "loose" in the low end for the bass heavy Mani's, but still very, very good. I wish there was a yes or no answer here, but depending on your listening tastes and room the lower output of the Rogue may or may not do it for you. If you are not able to audition the Cronus, you might consider finding a used unit which can, if it doesn't send you, be flipped costing you pretty much only freight. I'm now running mine with Rouge M-180's and I'm nothing but smiles. The Mani's will gladly and hungrily take as much power as you can give them, but I find they very much return the favor.
Actually, I already have the Cronus Magnum and I am contemplating getting a pair of the Mani-2's. It's good to hear how much you guys like the Mani-2's in general though, because I'm still not completely sold on them (I'm considering the Totem Hawks as well, and other speakers). I have the Rainmakers now, and the Hawks sounded very nice to me. I'm mainly looking at floorstanders, but I assumed that the Mani-2 might have a very full sound despite being a bookshelf speaker.

I also have an NAD C375BEE integrated amp, rated at 2 X 150W into both 4 and 8 ohms. I thought my Rogue Audio amp was much better, but would the NAD's higher power rating make it a better match for the Mani-2's?
I doubt you will like the NAD (though I've never heard it) better than the Rogue with Mani's. I don't think 150W of SS power is enough to make that much difference.
I think you will just need to try yourself. I found that I preferred my Butler 2250 (hybrid 250W amp) into my power hungry SP Tech Minis, but the Rogue Stereo 90 into my Von Schweikert VR-4s. Once you get past basic amp-speaker matching considerations, synergy becomes a bit more mysterious. The SP Minis in my small space were in no way straining the Rogue, but the Butler did sound better. It may have been the extra power or something else.
Rossbernstein-
Yeah, I figured out my misread shortly after my post. What is it exactly about the Mani's that you find yourself not sold on? Just curious. At times I have issues with them, other times they're just perfect. That's very likely no different than any other speaker I might have purchased. They were by far the most challenging speaker I've owned to figure out how to drive, but that's probably because I wasn't hitting them with an amp of sufficent power. I did find however that it's easy to find retailers who will tell you that the amp they are selling will match wonderfully with the Mani's. They were, well...selling.
Jerry