bedroom system need quality at low volume

For a bedroom system, I cannot image getting anything better than the amazing Shanling MC-30 receiver. All-in-one box with cd player, nice tuner, and a marvelous 3 watts of tube set power. 3 watts is surprisingly powerfull, more than enough for a bedroom system, sound more like 30-40 solidstate watts. To top it off, great remote, mp3 player dock, and looks great. All for audiophile peanuts considering what you are getting. Get this and a decent pair of bookshelfs. Whats not to like?

Good luck.

I've really been enjoying a pair of DeVore Gibbon 3 monitors in a small office room as a 3rd system. Amazing range, very flexible in terms of placement and great sound. The model 3 comes rear ported but can be special ordered as front ported from the factory. In this small system, I am using Eastern Electric tube gear. Very pleasing to listen to! Also, check out Fritz speakers. Great, handmade quality with a tremendous selection for various applications. Fritz will also customize for you, as he did with my handmade subwoofer.

A Watt is a Watt is a Watt.

Getting rich sound and good imaging at low levels is hard to do in general because of the Fletcher-Munson law. It was discovered many many years ago that human hearing is less sensitive at both ends of the frequency spectrum as the absolute volume decreases. This is a survival tactic/strategy so we can better hear the sound of approaching predators, which is generally in the midrange ;--)

If your preamp or receiver has a "loudness control" and you engage it, then as you turn down the volume, it will automatically boost the high and low end at a slowly increasing rate to compensate for Fletcher-Munson loss.

Two other things that can help are using highly efficient speakers, or electrostatic speakers (stats aren't that efficient but have extremely light-weight diaphrgms.) Inefficient speakers, or speakers with heavy cones/panels (like Maggies for instance) don't provide uniform response (or sometimes ANY response!) at low levels.

A Watt is the product of Current times Voltage. So not all (individual) Watts are created equal. Choosing whether you want more voltage or more current in each of your amps' output Watts should be based on the load the amp will be driving. Electrodynamic transducers (ribbons, voicecoils, and planar-magnetic) need as much voltage as possible in each Watt; electostatic transducers don't permit the electrons to flow (Current) as the (static) voltage increases/decreases, so they would prefer as much current as possible in each watt.
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