Low level listening

FWIW, I agree with Bartokfan that there is no contradition between successful low level and low sensitivity speakers. Being able to listen at low volume levels has always been a priority for me since I listen late at night after the rest of the family has gone to bed, and all the speakers I've ever owned have fallen into the low sensitivity category.

In my experience, the critical factors to success in low level listening have been resolution, consistency of tonal balance across the frequency range, and ability to resolve microdynamics. Speakers that have worked well for me for late night, low level listening have included: Celestion SL700s, Vandersteen 2Cs, Eidolons. None of these are high efficiency speakers, but all meet the three criteria I mentioned. I've also found that tube electronics help me in low level listening because of their greater resolving capability.
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I agree with what Duke said. I still say that speakers that have light diaphragms and powerful motors will provide the most detail and will perform better at low levels. Although some electrostatic speakers do not have high efficiency they do have a very light diaphragms and proportionately powerful electro-magnetic force to control the diaphragm.

Then on the other hand, in the area of psychoacoustics, systems that are compressed in their dynamic range would also tend to sound good at low listening levels because the intensity of the loudest sounds is closer to the intensity of the lower level sounds.

I remember that years ago I used to use a dbx compresser/expander to compress my system's dynamic range for lower-level listening. Come to think of it I do that now in my Home Theater system. It is so dynamic that if you leave it at a decent level for dialogue the loud passages will blow you off the sofa. So I normally use moderate compression on my HT receiver, which tames the power peaks a bit and also boosts the low-level sounds so that they are more intelligible. And my family appreciates it too. :)

Duke makes an excellent point that all of us should pay attention to:

Personally I place a high priority on low-level articulation even if the speaker is going to be played at high volume levels, because there will still be lots of low-level detail going on. And in my experience a speaker that still sounds good at very low volume levels is less likely to become fatiguing over a long listening session, so I encourage listening at very low volume levels as part of a thorough audition when you're speaker shopping.

...moreover there is the perception of loudness. The more your sysytem distorts the more loud it appears to be playing. Noise is louder than music.Hence high resolution systems appear to be playing much softer than the they really are.

i agree with Duke and others that low level dynamics and articulation is very important. i'm not one that knows the science part too well but i have come to appreciate this issue.

currently i don't have any limitations as to noise level since my room/system is in a separate building from my home. OTOH i have come to realize how important having your system be able to dynamically energize the room at reasonable SPL's is.

my previous room was 12' x 18' x 10' and my previous system was easily able to energize it at very reasonable SPL's. even though my speakers at that time (Kharma Exquisite's) generally needed some SPL's to 'get going' they were 'lively' in that room. i then moved that same system into my new acoustically designed (21' x 29' x 11') room and the system could not be dynamically engaging at lower SPL's. forgetting about the fact that it could not do low bass; the system could not get me 'involved' without really pushing it.

i did switch to the Von Schweikert VR9's and this speaker was much more dynamically alive at lower SPL's. further, it energized the room without a feeling of strain. the volume can be low enough for me to talk on the phone and yet can be so engaging to be a real distraction. there is never any feeling of strain or compression. it helps to have (2) 1000 watt integral subs, 4 channels of darTZeel amplification and 96db of speaker efficiency.

my conclusion is that a speaker needs to be properly scaled to a room dynamically for that low level information to be rendered with ease and naturalness. if a system does not engage at low levels it likely will not work well at high levels either.