thanks for the advice so far guys, the frustrating thing is how good this system sounds when it is not distorting. it seems i need to proceed with caution and find a way to get bigger sound without losing the musical nature of this setup. two things i know: i want to stay with tube amplification and i dont want speakers with metal dome tweeters. my musical tastes tend to be fairly diverse so i need to find a way to make my system more versatile.
speaker or amp distorting
i have jm reynaud arpeggione floorstanders that are a small two way with soft dome tweeter and 6.5 inch paper cone in a transmission line design. they are reasonabley efficient 90db. my amp is a modified jolida 102b with el84 tubes and 25 watts of power. on simple music with without too many dynamic peaks and modest instrumentation i.e. four or five instruments or less this setup is magical. however, with big band or vocals when things ramp up dynamically the treble seems to harden and hurt my ears. occasionally i will hear some distortion. is this the amp or the speaker or something else? thanks