Minimum Power Needed to Drive Klipsch Cornwall IVs? - Considering Erhard_Audio Ray


Hi,

I'm new to the the hifi world but have taken up the hobby with alacrity. I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall IVs to go with my Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2. At the time I purchased the speakers I had no idea what speaker sensitivity is. Now that I do, I realize that I have a lot of interesting options when choosing an amp. I have been toying with the idea of getting an Erhard-Audio Single-Ended Ray along with their Aretha pre-amp. The amp is only 4W/channel. I'm highly skeptical but I've been told that 4W is plenty to drive a 102db speaker and that the sound of an SE amp is amazing.

Wondering if anyone has experience driving Klipsch Cornwall IVs (or other high sensitivity speakers) with a low wattage amp. I'm also interested in experience with SE amps.

My system consists of the following:

Technics 1200G
VAS Nova cartridge
VAS SUT
Rogue Audio Triton 2 phono pre-amp
Bluesound Node
Musican Pegasus DAC
Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2

My room is 15' x 30' with 14' ceilings. It's a photo studio in an old mill. I'm often moving around so I need the sound to fill the space. BUT I've gotten noise complaints from my neighbors so...

Musical preference is all over the place. Today I'm listening to Dire Straits, Sturgill Simpson, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Tycho, Post Malone, Taylor Swift, Michelle Gurevich etc.

katokaelin

Showing 1 response by moose89

I’ll interject my two cents because I have had the heritage Cornwall now for three years and I have tried a variety of different amplifiers. I thought I needed a tube amp so I went through Dennis Had and his fire bottle and a bunch of different Cary tube amplifiers Rocket 88 and one more that was more powerful setting my own bias. Then I was informed as many of us are by YouTube videos, and thought that I had to have a Hegel so I brought in Hegel… I brought in a First Watt and  also brought in a Nakamichi beast. I believe it was the PA-7. No bueno. Too much raw power for CW4. Too much Damper. 
 

Hegel 190 was not a good match. First Watt was too much. Cary and Dennis Had’s bigger tubed SET were decent but the highs were hot, not what tube airy sound should be. 
 
I can say low- powered solid state toroidal mid-priced amps from NAD were very good, reacting to needed bass power.
 

SMSL has a small Class A (10) (A1?)WPC that’s perfect,(sweet mids too) as is my currently using 1970 McIntosh MC 2105 (first solid state one), is steller with enough pop for the 15” woofers.

Thats the Cornwall dilemma. They’ll run on a flashlight battery’s power, with efficiency, but enough power is needed to move those 15 inch woofers which were installed not to move… and to minimize speakers’ movement, (Paul always thinking of less distortion always). So my advice is to find a sweet sounding musical  (100 W per channel) amplifier that you like. That way, you will have what these speakers do best… and that is to play at low midnight volume where you can go ahead and really appreciate what they do better, possibly better than any other speaker… and that is to listen to bracketed details inside the music … that perhaps you listened to for 20 years and just now discovering subtleties within the recordings… that you hadn’t heard before. But you’re not gonna do that at jacked volumes with these speakers…. and they are great in a 7 foot triangle and in a small room. 

These speakers will then pay you back…all genres when you got em matched up right! They will also need a nice SVS Subwoofer. Thank you for letting me state my humble opinion. Happy discoveries!!