Quote Originally Posted by Carbonated
Being new to audio, I recently (6 months ago) purchased a starter system from a local audio store. I bought the Linn Classic and a pair of Snell K-7 speakers at the advice of the salesman. I have the system set up in my office (small room) and listen to classical. I noticed that I have to turn the dial up quite a ways to get any sound and then the bass is not very noticeble.

I told a friend recently about my dilema and when he checked out the system specs he thought it was not such a good match (but he is not sure). The amp is rated at 75 watts at 4 OHMS and the speakers need a minimum 100 watts @ 8 ohms to drive them (87 dba efficiency)according to the literature . He thought either I should get a more powerful amp or a speaker more in line with the receiver (like the Linn Kan). Did I get bad advice at the audio store? I feel I was taken advantage of because of my ignorance. Please give me some advice as I don't know if my friend is correct in his thinking or not.

Thanks in advance and Happy Thanksgiving!
...is probably the maximum sustained power that you can feed 'em... not the minimum they need.

The Snells seem to be of average sensitivity, your amp is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 WPC at 8 ohms. I'm not familiar with the Linn stuff, they should be at least "good", if not better. Sometimes one company's 100 WPC will seem weaker than a high-end 30 WPC. Again, not familiar with it, so I can't really comment - just don't get too tied up in specs.

Have you played with speaker placement? Closer to corners will give more bass. Same for your seating - more bass would be perceived sitting on the wall, as opposed to the listening chair in the middle of the room. Since the room is small, you are probably sitting near the back wall (or is that "front"?).

Maybe the speakers (or the amp) are indeed bass-light, but I would experiment with placement.