Originally Posted by
sharkman
The Ascend school of thought on their speakers is typically that a receiver can run them just fine, and no amps are required. That said, I owned the Sierra 2 for about 3 years and they also ran just fine with a Parasound Halo A21(with P7 as pre), which has 250 wpc. My findings, which if I recall I also read on this forum, is that the Sierra 2 is somewhat laid back in presentation, not bright or harsh at all. I think I read that the Tower with Rall has a little more energy in the highs than the S2.
The thing is, Parasound's house sound is also somewhat laid back, or warm on the top end. At times I wished for a little more energy in fact. So it would depend on your preferences, but you might consider this in your deliberations. I don't know what Emotiva's House sound is these days. They always insisted that they were dead neutral, but when I owned the XPA-3, I found that they were bright/harsh, at least with the XPA amp line.
Yamaha is supposed to have a more forward sound. How do you find the highs with the Yamaha?