John,

That's interesting about the Sansui. One of my buddies has a Sansui pre-amp and 170W/channel power amp (good for 340 clean Watts into 4 Ohms apparently).

Anyway, these things are absolute monsters! He purchased them in 1984 and he has a hand-written certificate from the factory attesting to their tight specifications over the entire frequency range. Over the years he's had to make extensive modifications to improve the cooling inside the power amp and he has to remove and re-insert the termination boards every 6 months because they develop an oxide build-up.

I was over at his place last night listening to Dire Straits through his Nuances and I was totally impressed with the immediacy and tightness of the bass. And when he turned it up loud, it didn't hurt...it just got more filling. Now of course it could be his room acoustics but we'll know for sure by the end of this weekend I think. He's planning on bringing the amps and his Nuances over so that we can do multiple comparisons.

House of the Rising Sone
Out in the mid or far field
Dedicated mid-woofers are over-rated