Not long ago, I listened to a Luxman L-590AxII and McIntosh MA8900 tied to a pair of SF Olympica Nova V speakers. Those speakers have a sensitivity rating of 90 dB SPL (2.83V/1 m) and sounded very nice with both integrated amps. The main difference was the Luxman required a much higher volume control level to achieve my personal listening level preference than the McIntosh. Neither amp seemed to struggle with dynamic passages of music I was familiar with, but the Luxman was noticeably warmer than the McIntosh after 30 minutes of listening. Not hot to the touch, but very warm. I've always felt that the Class A amplification narrative should have been disregarded long ago as nothing but marketing hype. I know, many will argue that but to my ears, Class A has never outperformed a very good class AB amp in sound quality. These speakers just sounded bigger and fuller with the McIntosh at higher volume levels.
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