Tannoy Westminster amp matching question.

Charles1dad - you are completely wrong when you assume SS only has
advantages in the bass.
I have been listening to Tannoy GRF Professionals ( super rare backloaded
horns similar in size and efficiency to the Westminsters ) for over 15 years
with a Perreaux 5150B ( 500 wpc ) and have had the experience of auditioning
many amps including single ended, OTL's - including Ralph's, ultralinear etc.
I can tell you that efficiency is only half the story. With the 15" driver
what the big Perreaux achieves is superb timing and control that single ended
and many other tube amps cannot achieve. For example on Beethovens 5th by
von Karajan, the relentlessness of the performance is superbly communicated
with 500watts of power, even at low listening levels. This is lost with many
low power amps.
I suspect the amplifier needs to control the big driver, and this is almost more
important than the speakers efficiency in selecting an amplifier.
FWIW I own 2 pairs of 15" Tannoys and a pair of 10" Monitors.
Single ended with these speakers is pretty much a tone control. They very
seldom produce accurate musical timing.

Borg7x9 - The GRF Professionals in a room similar in size to yours worked better across the room - this would be worth trying.

Charles1dad -
Again you still make false assumptions when you assert that "high powered solid state" may suit someones preferences. The underlying assumption you imply is that high powered solid state has a sound - well that's not true, its going to be speaker dependent. Isn't the primary goal of an amplifier to drive the speaker properly.
My point was that you need an amp that is driving the speakers properly and with over 20 years experience with Tannoy 15" drivers in various cabinets, I do believe that many folk incorrectly assume that you only need a few watts because of the high efficiency. I believe that controlling the 15" driver, which has been specifically designed to be phase coherent through the crossover point at 1k, is paramount to maintaining that design intent.
I personally do not use high powered solid state. I use a very high current phase coherent 50wpc solid state amp, regarded by many as one of the best solid state amps ever made. I still own tube amps as well, some of which blow the Plinius away completely through the midrange in transparency, liquidity and preservation of harmonics, but are they the best amps for Tannoy - not necessarily.
Let me give you an example. A friend of mine has the Coincident Pure Reference speakers which are 94db. He uses most of the time a Bakoon amplifier of 15 watts. This drives the Coincidents in a large room easily. On my Tannoys of similar efficiency the Bakoon sounds very transparent, but runs out of power very quickly, even at low listening levels. As I explained above the efficiency is only half the story and can be misleading.

Charlesdad
Thanks for the response. I think we would agree on most points. Virtually all the posts were recommending low power tubes. If I'm buying an amp for a new pair of speakers, I would try to hear as much as possible of all types of amplifier. Tube amps I have heard extensively and do like are the Air Tight ATM3 monos, Marantz 8B, original Quicksilver 8417's, EAR 519/549's & Futterman OTL1's.

The Bakoon I have listened to quite frequently was the SCA7511 with Vishay attenuator. It has a grainless, reasonably transparent sound - very very smooth and easy to listen to. As stated I personally found it underpowered with the Tannoys, but it seems to work well with the Coincindents. I preferred it to the Frankensteins. The Border Patrol 300B also works very well with the Coincidents.