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Raven Osprey vs Octave 110 with low sensitivity speakers

I’m wondering if anyone out there has experience running the Raven Osprey into low sensitivity speakers. I have a pair of Boenicke W5’s that are some of the most amazingly life-like speakers I auditioned in the hunt, and with breathtaking soundstage—in an amazingly small solid wood cabinet. The price you pay is that these 4 ohm speakers are extremely hard to drive: 83-86 dB sensitivity—and I have them in quite a large, open room. Right now they are driven by a Parasound Halo integrated which does a fantastic job in powering them, but I’m in search of even more resolution and detail, and also did want to give tubes a try. My choices are used Octave V 110 SE vs Raven Osprey. The Octave definitely has the power, but I’m told might not be quite as resolving in the upper registers. The Raven Osprey is a lower power unit, but does have the subwoofer bypass that allows me to take some of the load off of the amp (a digression on Boenicke customer service: Sven Boenicke was kind enough to personally go through my room characteristics and set-up to advise on speaker placement and sub integration—although he seemed a bit sad that I’d risk corrupting his sublime bass characteristics with an outboard!). The Octave is a known, the Raven would be unknown since I can’t audition and would have to deal with the hassle of returning/restock: is it just asking too much of the Osprey to power these little beasts? Is the Octave a no-brainer?
feliks

Showing 2 responses by mlsstl

mlsstl
1,462 posts
 
feliks -- how loud do you listen in terms of dB level? (Forget the subjective terms of "loud" and "moderate" as those mean different things to different people.)  Get yourself a sound level meter if you don't already have one. Power and loudness are in a logarithmic relationship. This means that once you get to a certain volume you can run out of power very quickly since each 3 dB increase in volume requires double the power.  

I use a Schiit Aegir which has 20 watts a channel (8 ohms) and very easily drive my 88 dB sensitivity speakers to my desired max average volume (80 to 85 dB, C scale) with plenty of headroom. When I first got the amp I used to VTVM to monitor the amp's output to see if I was running short of power and discovered the combo was just fine for me.  

That's the key -- find what works for you. I realize there are a lot of members of the "more watts is always better" club but that's not the only way to do things. 
mlsstl
1,462 posts
 
Actually, my measurement microphone has an omni pickup pattern and so is less directional than my ears.   I've had no problem in getting what I measure to correlate with what I hear in terms of general loudness and how that relates to my amp's power output at my desired listening levels.
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