Bob Carver "Black Beauty 305" or the E.A.R. 890

Also, your 24' x 27' room would be considered quite large! Indeed, I would suggest you require quite a healthy dose of power unless you *always* listen at very low volume levels. Really, your power needs are dictated more by the peak/crest levels you hit rather than your average levels -- these peaks can shoot up surprisingly high on high dynamic range material (classical), but they're typically very close to the average level on highly compressed rock/pop recordings.

+3dB is (almost exactly) twice the acoustic energy -- that's not subjective. How much "louder" it sounds to a person is somewhat subjective. Some folks prescribe that +10dB constitutes a doubling in perceived volume, others say +6dB; personally I find even +3dB to be quite significant, and +10dB sounds a lot more than just twice as loud.

I didn't put it in the title because it is a second discussion... but, audio guy I'm working with suggestion was a choice between the Carver and the Bryston 28BSST2 (at 1000 wpc). I have a tube pre-amp so there would still be tubes in the system. I love the sound of tube amps -- if I go that root for more power I'll have to listen for a while before I choose.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I'd have to hear the SS amp first, and I'd be very wary of amps with a reputation of being analytical or bright (a reputation that seems to follow the Bryson amps to some degree). I owned some Parasound JC1 monos a while ago that had a very nice sonic balance for SS, and with plenty of power on tap into 4 ohms.