BEST SPEAKER THAT COMES TO LIFE AT LOW LISTENING LEVELS

I also use ML 11As and I find them engaging and enjoyable at the level you prefer, but I understand that everyone's ears and experiences are different. I have also experienced better results after installing a line conditioner, and it's pretty affordable too (Niagara 1200). 

thank you @elliottbnewcombjr for the information on the RLC-1, I have an older (at what point can something I purchased new be considered "vintage"?) preamp that never had remote capability and after all these years it would be nice to finally control the volume from my listening position.

@elliottbnewcombjr thank you again! I offered a price and it is now being shipped to me.  I am really looking forward to being able to control the volume while playing vinyl, which is pretty much 100% of the time when I'm "actively listening". I have been using this preamp (ARC LS7) since 1995, and it didn't include remote capability. Not having to jump up before the end of Tschaikovsky's 4th to turn the volume down will be a welcome chance for my increasingly creaky joints.

Sincerely, good looking out.

elliottbnewcombjr

That's excellent, that balance control sounds pretty sweet - so many recordings seem slightly "right speaker biased" but I figured that due to the room limitations it was just something I'd have to live with. I'm just hoping there is no "sonic signature" imparted by the Chase, it seems to really check every box otherwise. It is supposed to arrive on Tuesday, and I will report back once I've had a chance to fiddle a bit.

@elliottbnewcombjr I have had a chance to plug this in and it is indeed a very cool piece of equipment - low level listening (from streaming) sounds really, really great. Most of my streaming listening is done at lower volume, I just don't use it to actively listen. 

The problem for me is switching to vinyl. There is a ton of added noise. I added a grounding cable (I never had to use one in the past) and that mitigated it a little, but not nearly enough for me to live with it. I even tried connecting the phono pre out directly to the RLC-1 and it was worse than when the phono was connected to my ARC preamp.  I'm going to try playing with the location of my phono preamp to see if that makes any difference, but otherwise I confess I'm a bit of a sad panda because the concept is so cool.