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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
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,651 posts
 
Unsuitable for MC.
Surprise surprise.

A question like that gets all of the predictable answers. ALL you can do is try it and see if it makes you happy.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Shallow. Did I not say to try the Osprey? Which is all you are saying. So no new information, just your virtue-signaling insult. Predictable, indeed.
arafiq's avatar
arafiq
1,790 posts
 
Not everyone likes how high sensitivity speakers sound. It's not a 'trap', rather personal preference like anything else in this hobby.
Post removed 
feliks OP
17 posts
 
These comments are incredibly helpful: I’ll pull out the sound meter to check the minimum maximum with the current setup that I would want to commit to, and back calculate from there. I recognize the ambiguity of “83 to 86” but that’s the best I can get from the website on the W5s. Interestingly, in hunting around, the W8 seems to come even lower at around 81.5 even though the spec sheet says higher, and one reviewer claimed that there was some email exchange with the company reportedly suggesting “1,000 W into 4 ohms” was appropriate power for the W8s. That, my friends, is for MC’s reading pleasure...
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