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Integrated amp for Totem Sttaff

Hello all. I am new to the site but have been ravenously reading reviews and posts the last few weeks. I am in the proccess of replacing my 20 year old Boston A 400's with the Sttafs....Now my dilemma.I am currently running a Denon 2106 and have found a helpful dealer selling...Naim, Creek, Sim, Cambridge, Arcam. I am seriously considering jumping in the deep end of the audio pool and get a new power source as well to match....My problem..The dealer is a 3 hr drive away so auditioning the Totems and the matching amps is possible, im hoping your experince may help me have a better starting point if im to drive that far....I know other brands are out there, but I dont have access to viewing them, let alone buying them. Im hoping $ 1,500 cdn will put me in a good spot to get the most from the Totems...Thanks in advance.
mxwizard

Showing 2 responses by bdgregory

bdgregory
1,725 posts
 
Sttafs are really nice with Tubes. I had a pair and for a while drove them on a 20w/c vintage Fisher X202. That was fun. They'd be nicer with more like 30-40 w Tube amps.

The again, they're really nice with SS amps too . . .
bdgregory
1,725 posts
 
The Sttaf, although designed to work with a wide variety of electronics, tends to only sound its best when paired with tube gear and placed in small, sealed off rooms. It also requires fairly precise positioning; as most Totem's do.
I owned a pair of Sttafs for 2 years, sold them only to upgrade to Mani-2s. I think you need to be careful interpreting this statement. While it may be true they do their best in these conditions, that's only a little bit better than under most any other conditions in my experience.

I found them fairly easy to place (ie by comparison to every other speaker I've owned). While they are wonderful with Tubes, mine were wonderful with every amp I used. And while they're more suited to a smaller room, I found them quite nice in a 16x24, and 14x20 open rooms (maybe these are small?).

I wish I still had mine!
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