Newbie amp help......why?

Does your receiver have "Pre-amp out" jacks on the back? If so, you could continue using the tuner and pre-amp sections of the receiver, and hook up a better quality power amp to drive the speakers (bypassing the amplifier section in the receiver). But the signal from the CD player would still be going through the pre-amp section of your Pioneer, so I'm not sure how much would be gained by this. It's all about quality--not volume levels. So I would second Maineiac's recommendation.

How did the issue of whether you might need an amp come up? Did someone else tell you this? Or did you come up with it on your own?

PSB Stratus Golds are decent speakers, and some other A-goner with more experience of them can probably tell you how easy or how difficult they are to drive, and what works well with them.

If you're satisfied with the sound, and someone else is messing with your mind, let it be.

If you yourself have got a hankering for better sound, then the Pioneer is probably the weakest link in the chain, and you have a whole host of possibilities for improvement. One way to go (certainly not the only way), is like I said, if you add, say, a better power amp now (still using the Pioneer as pre-amp), and then, when finances permit, a better pre-amp later (and the eliminate the Pioneer).

If you haven't heard tubes, you should try and do so. Try and find a dealer who stocks Cayin, PrimaLuna, Jolida or some other of the less expensive brands.

Or find a dealer stocking PSB, and see what they drive them with...

Kevin--

Above and beyond the issue of sheer volume (and Pubul57 is right), I have to say that Sonance is not a brand name that comes up very often on A'gon as incarnating the kind of sonic qualities that most high-enders are looking for. I would have thought you'd be better off with a number of other ss products: Musical Fidelity comes to mind, that might go well with PSB, as well as Creek, Sim Audio, Bryston, and the other names already mentioned here (Naim, Vincent, Parasound). Where did the Sonance come from? Do they have a return policy? Or trade-in/trade-up?....