High value, high efficiency speakers for SET amps

Rebbi, long, long, ago, in a land far, far away when you started this thread, I drove the deCapos with 3 different amps. If your AN is even remotely close to my Coincident Frankensteins, I am not one bit surprised that you are very pleased with the pairing. Mapman is right. Do nothing without an ability to A/B, and that without financial downside. I am also more than a little interested in the Tekton line, but am in no hurry. Along with everyone else, I am very pleased that things are going well now.

Rebbi,
Browns fan gives sage advice, as does Mapman. I really like the Tekton speakers that I own, but also really like the De Capo's as well. My gut feeling is that the AN Kit-1 is a superb match with the De Capo as you described and should get better as your amp breaks in further.

Since you inspired my wife and she is still determined to build the AN Kit-1 herself I've given a lot of thought to what ancillary audio equipment will create real music with a moderate budget. I'm still pondering that equation and think I'm going to do something like this:
AN Kit-1 $2,100-2,500.
Yamamoto Dac $1,000.
My Sony S9000ES SACD/CD as Transport
Tekton Lore Speakers.
Something like Silnote Power Cord, Interconnect, Digital and Speaker cables. Maybe Triode wire...or ???
Probably upgrade to Jupiter Cap...???
Probably upgrade tubes after stock burn-in...Black Treasure ???
Since I already own a bunch of this stuff total cost might be around $5,000. Of course I could also save some money by utilizing my Minimax Dac instead of the Yamamoto which I think I want for my main room system with the Franks.
Best Rebbi, I'm happy for you that all is well and you are thoroughly enjoying the music.

Rob,
The Yamamoto DAC is relatively a rare find in the used marketplace. If you can get one for only 1K that is a true steal!(believe me). Given your taste and experience I think you'll really enjoy it. It definitely is geared towards the "music lover" crowd. I'm sure you know what I mean.
Charles,

I agree Rebbi that you should "stay put" unless given the opportunity to listen to another speaker without financial committment. All I can say is that the longer I live with the DeCapos the more I enjoy them. They are a VERY refined musically involving monitor. All this talk about how well the DeCapo and Kit 1 work together makes me want to challenge my suspicions, primarily that the Kit doesn't have enough gas for large scale dynamic music. I would like to be wrong. It's hard to overlook the enthusiasm of users of low powered SET amps and these speakers.

Charles,
Good question. To be honest, no, there's nothing I miss about the Manley Mahis. At least with my associated equipment, I feel that the Kit 1 betters the Manley's in every way. The Kit 1 is much quieter – it is dead silent even if I turn the volume control all the way up to maximum. Instrumental tone and timbre is miles ahead. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was listening to a Joni Mitchell Greatest Hits CD last week and the sound of her voice and the tone of some of the acoustic guitar work was startlingly real.)
As the amp continues to settle in, I have found that low-end response is, surprisingly, at least as good as my old push-pull gear, maybe even a little better. On "Another World," from Joe Jackson's "Night and Day" LP, the big kettle drum whacks have a body to them that I never heard before. Similarly, a few nights ago I was listening to one of my favorite songs from Paul Simon's "So Beautiful or So What" CD. The track "Rewrite," features all sorts of exotic string instruments and percussion, including hits on some kind of very deep sounding talking drum. The energy and authority on those drum hits completely took me by surprise. I think I must have been grinning!
The Kit 1 also has that wonderful ability to present the music as an organic whole, while still giving each component of the music is due without smearing. So, well recorded background vocals sound clean and pure and you can appreciate them both as a unified, harmonic entity while at the same time hearing each voice as its own musical element.
I will give you all one further example.
I own a single Diana Krall CD. I'm not a big fan of hers (no offense to those of you who are) but I bought her CD "When I Look in Your Eyes" a few years ago because I knew that she is an audiophile favorite and wanted to see what the fuss was about.
I can certainly understand why the audiophile crowd loves her. Apart from the quality of the performances (say what you will) the sonics are immaculate.
Anyway, on the opening cut of that CD, "Let's Face the Music and Dance," there is some beautiful (schmaltzy) orchestration that always sounded very pretty on my old amplifiers. But when I listened to that track last night for the very first time on the Kit 1, I was astounded by the presentation. Startlingly, the background went from sounding like "orchestration" to sounding like An Orchestra playing in an auditorium behind the speakers. Now, remember, I have a small, cluttered and fairly acoustically compromised listening room, but I NEVER thought I'd hear music like this in my own home.
So, yeah, you could say I'm happy. ;-)