Best loudspeaker with coincident/coaxial driver

ZD,

Well, there you go....

I can understand why the OP chose the subject line that he did, as his 14 X 13 room is a bit on the small side (with other potential issues as well). If the speakers need space from rear and side walls, driver integration might become an issue; and ergo coherence as well.
I would recommend Thiels, but the 3.7's might be a bit much for such a small room, perhaps some of Thiel's other smaller offerings might be a more appropriate fit.

This thread is a subject matter that I have been investigating for about 5 years now.

I owned the Revel Salon 1 for 5 years and liked it a lot but did not love it. I loved it the day I heard it at a store and made an impulse buy. I then started to learn more about speakers and the coincident driver technology intrigued me.

One day I happened to go to a store that sold the Thiel CS 3.7. I listened to this speaker for hours and came away floored. I thought all the music that I listened to at home sounded way better on the Thiel CS 3.7 over the Revel.

This was going to be the speaker to beat. I ended up following a girl to a small beach community and a very small apartment. So I sold the Revel and bought the Thiel SCS4 monitors as a stop gap until I eventually moved in to a bigger home and had space for the mighty Thiel CS 3.7. The SCS4 speaker was OK in the small room I had it in 14 x 13.

A few years later a friend of mine bought the KEF LS50 and lent it to me to have a listen. I was again floored. This was an incredible monitor and beat the pants out of the Thiel SCS4. So I thought, if the KEF LS50 monitor is better than the Thiel SCS4 monitor, maybe I need to have a listen to the KEF Blade. I did this one day for about 5 hours. It was hard to compare the Thiel CS 3.7 and KEF Blade but the Blade had 1 amazing trait that made me pick it over the Thiel CS 3.7. They both had huge soundstages but the KEF allowed a listener not to be parked at the perfect sweet spot to get great sound. I had more leeway as to where I could sit to get the best sound. The Thiel CS 3.7 was great in this regard but the KEF Blade was greater and now the speaker to beat.

I am currently using only the KEF LS50 speakers with great satisfaction in my office system and I cannot see the day when I would replace them for my small office space 12 x 11. However, I still want a big floor stander for hopefully a big room in a new house.

I have been listening to other coincident driver speakers and others speaker type at shows and dealers in Southern California. I have heard some mega buck speakers and none of these have beaten the KEF Blade.

Coincident driver types I have heard for long hours at stores:

Vienna Acoustics THE KISS
TAD Evolution 1
KEF Reference 1
KEF Reference 5

Great non-coincident driver speakers:
Wilson Audio Alexia
Magico Q7
Sony SS-AR2
Focal Sopra

My top 2 favourites in all the speakers I have listed so far are #1 KEF Blade and #2 Thiel CS 3.7. The others are all amazingly good but do not move me in the way the Blade and CS 3.7 do.

Excellent over-view Yyzsantabarbara.
The Thiel CS is my reference loudspeaker. The only (2) other speakers that I would like to demo someday, are the Sony SS-AR1 and Verity- both cost substantially more in comparison.

I want to read about your thoughts on the Sony SS-AR2 ?

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!

I love Tannoy and have owned some models over the years (Eyris DC3, Dimension TD10, Kensington SE, Canterbury SE), and heard several more. Lots of great speakers there, particularly the Prestige line. But I'd be wary of the 10A and recommend auditioning before buying. I've heard it a few times at my dealer, and the resolution and imaging are fantastic but the energy up top is just too damn much -- searing, in fact. I've heard Tannoys run the gamut from dark to bright and these were the only that were flat out searing to my ears. Yes, you can fight that back down with room setup and gear matches, but from my experience this once is well above the norm up top.