What tube amp to drive Guarneri's?

Chris, your 19x11 room would seem to be more problematical in its ratio of size than your 21x15.5 room. Did you have the speakers on the long wall or firing down the long wall in the samll room?
I would suspect that maybe the smaller room would be an issue with most speakers due to its ratio.

Yes, the smaller room is a bit of a problem, although, I've successfully used Avantgardes in the same room. The bigger room in my other home sounded great regardless of what was in play. I think a clock radio would have sounded good in that room! I am using a single driver speaker now based on the Phy-Hp driver. It is utterly amazing and the room is not a bit of a problem Oh' I fired the Guarneri down the long wall. They were about 5' from the front wall and I was about 10' from them.

Hi

I recommend the David Berning ZH-270 OTL

This is one of the amplifiers SF use to voice their speakers. I have the Guarneri Berning combo and it really has a very nice synergy

FF

I own Vienna Mahlers and McIntosh 2 x MC2102's drive them very well and sound great. It has been the only tube amp to correctly contril the bass, including cj prem8a's and VTL MB750's.

Try one and add another if need and when you can afford.

enjoy

Hi,
I have a pair of Guarneris and I love tubes and here is my experience in order of most favorable to least favorable. I own or have owned the following amps with the Guarneris.

Favorites
Berning + CAT Ultimate 2 (Berning needs the CAT - the CAT is by far the most synergistic preamp I've had in my system)
CJ16LS2 + Art Audio Quartets with KR845 tubes

Medium
Joule Stargates (lovely triode, but not enough power for the G's)
Conrad Johnson MV60 el34 tubes (with Winged C or Sovtek) - not nearly as much bottom as any of the above (or as a Tom Evans Linear A on loan), but lovely midrange.

Least
EAR534 (slow, muddy and poorly machined)
Conrad Johnson MV60 (ei tube or svetlana "s" tube)

The Guarneris are also very sensitive to the source. I'm currently using an Audio Note DAC and CDT2 and it sounds wonderful. I've had medium results with a Wadia 301 and poor results with an Arcam fmj23. For vinyl I've had good results with a KandK phono kit and poor results with an EAR834P.