[octalsocket]

Very informative reply, thanks!

I have read a high percentage of comments, of the relatively few there are, saying the GR edition of the Canterbury was designed for SS. Now, none of them said they heard it from a Tannoy engineer or company rep, so it may be just speculation.

However, you're the first and only I've seen who's detailed his experiences using both tube and SS with the GRs, the majority being tubes.

My Canterburys are in a 16' x 24' guest room on the short wall. Even with the 15 watt Quads, they go plenty loud and start overloading the room fairly quickly. As noted by the Stereophile review, the only shortcoming I really notice with the Quads is a slightly softened and looser bottom end.

Sticking with tubes, a bit of research has led me to considering the Radford STA25 or Quicksilver Mid Monos. A bit more power, a bit more damping factor. Not too tight of a grip, and just one pair of tubes per channel. The rationale for both is the numerous opinions that 15" DCs like a bit of freedom, and I think the added complexity of paralleled output tubes takes something away from the purity of signal.

The best SS amp I currently have is my 20-yr-old B&K 2220 over-achiever, but for some reason, my main tube pre doesn't like any of my three SS amps, setting up what I think is a ground-loop hum. Until that's addressed, it's not a fair comparison.

Having read a lot about your journey regarding your room size and listening SPLs, we may be on slightly different paths, but I think we're going in the same basic direction.