Jeff, the usual answer still applies: it depends on how loud the volume level at your listening position is and how wide the dynamic range of your program material(to allow enough power for brief peaks)is. For most situations typical receivers with power ratings anywhere in the 100-150 watt area are plenty for speakers with average sensitivity, such as the Algonquins.

RE: Sibilance

Chess and I did a wee experiment a few years back. Wee being, I burned a few CD's of songs that I found to be sibilant, (but recorded well) when listening to them on my M80ti's, sent them to Chess and he gave them a whirl listening to them with his M40s (or were they M50's??, I don't recall). His speakers were regarded as being "more forgiving" than the M80's.

Now when I say "recorded well", I mean that the recording in general was well done, but yet, for some reason, still sounded sibilant. Most of the sibilance was due to the vocals. (Breaking Benjamin was one of the CD's)

The verdict was: that they were sibilant, regardless of the speakers.

Several years later, I played a few of the same songs on some different speakers of mine. They're still sibilant.

So the moral of this story is; garbage in, garbage out, no matter if you make it wear a pretty dress and put a pretty bow on it or not.

Where's Mark??? This thread is due to go off topic again. Common slacker....pick up the pace.

On which speakers did you find the voices sibilant and which didn’t you? If the sibilant ones were “accurate” speakers at least from the mid to high range then the M3s should also sound sibilant on the same material that the other speakers did.

If you dress Mark up in a pretty dress and a bow and put him in a square room will he sound sibilant? ... or maybe petulant.

Fedex just deliverd my M3's. I'm still hooking them up. One speaker was missing the red and black caps that snap into the openings on the speaker connectors. Also when I looked into one speaker I saw lots of poly fill but the other speaker has no poly that I can see and all I see is a white wire hanging there.

The poly does tend to shift around. You sure the caps aren't in the box or the bag? They're quite loose.

No. I checked everywhere. But what's that wire that I see?

It probably connects the tweeter to the crossover.

Right now I'm less than thrilled. The missing speaker opening caps bugs me and that wire just hanging there does too. I'm listening to them now and I hope they get better than this. They really don't sound that much better than my previous speakers.

Those small colored caps won't stay in the holes anyway. There is a + and - printed near each terminal to go by. The music vibrated mine out, then the cat got them.