Benefits to Denon 3805 upgrade for Studio 100's

I owned the same model for about a year. Mine sounded quite nice with a B&K ST140, which is about 100 or 105 wpc. There was a MAJOR improvement when I upgraded to Odyssey Statos Extreme Monoblocks, which are at LEAST 200 watts each, but probably more like 300, according to Klaus. Also, the Extremes have a huge amount of capacitance, 180,000 micro-farads EACH, which translates into a lot of current delivery. This is all relevant because these speakers DO love the extra power and current delivery, even though they're rated at ~91 dB efficiency.

You've probably already figured this out, but it's a mistake I made when I first switched to bi-wire speaker cables: Don't forget to remove the little jumper connectors between the two sets of loudspeaker binding posts when bi-wiring. I did NOT know about them and just hooked up the Canare bi-wired speaker cables in (what I thought was) a passive bi-wire configuration. (I should have figured it out, because how else could the speakers operate correctly if a conventional speaker cable was connected to only one of the two sets of binding posts?)

So I hooked the Canare biwires into both sets of binding posts, and I was straining to hear a difference, but wasn't really sure that I could. THEN a while later (days, weeks?) I saw the little brass bridges connecting the two sets of binding posts on the back of the speakers, and took them OFF. At that point the speakers were TRULY bi-wired (passively), and THEN there was a noticeable improvement in soundstaging. Kind of embarrassing, but that's what happened to me, and that's how I discovered the little brass colored jumper bridges. In my defense, they're pretty darn inconspicuous just sitting back there under the binding posts.......Oh well.
-Bill

My Paradigm experience started with the original Studio 100's then the V.2's. I auditioned the 3's but something was missing so I stayed with the 2's.

I used a 200w Cerwin-Vega amp which gave up the ghost due to age. I replaced it with the PS Audio HCA-2 rated at 150w @8 ohms and the speakers really came alive. Moding the HCA was better still. Then a friend loaned me a 100w Ayre V3 and I began listening to the music and not the system.

It was apparent to me that the Paradigms will improve as the quality of the entire system improves up to a point. So if your at all serious about two channel keep everything because you'll be able to use in a home theater system. Upgrading to a decent integrated or amp/preamp can only improve your sonic quality. But you knew this already...right?

Have fun

Thanks for the feedback. I know listening is the final test, but besides wpc and THD, what specs are critical in identify a quality amp and getting the most for your money?

Current delivery is a biggie, and that's proportional to capacitance.