Efficient, affordable speakers for SETs?

I’ve owned Vandersteen 1B speakers for a long time.They are easy to drive and have a 6 ohm impedance.

These are not suitable for an SET. Generally speaking, to get the best out of any SET the amplifier should never be driven past about 20-25% of full power. If you do, higher ordered harmonics begin to appear, at first only on transients. The ear uses those harmonics to sense sound pressure, so this causes the amp to sound very 'dynamic' but its really distortion masquerading as dynamics. If you've read about how dynamic SETs can be, this is why. A speaker at least 10dB more efficient that the Vandersteens is needed; even the Coincidents are a bit on the low side, notwithstanding the fact that they also sell SETs.


One way to deal with this is to get a sub or subs (the best being the Audiokinesis Swarm) and then get a speaker that only goes down to 70Hz or so. If the SET does not have to make the bass and the speaker doesn't either, the choices available goes up quite a lot!

As I've stated around 172 times, Klipsch Heresy IIIs are 99db efficient and I use 'em with 2 REL subs to cover the under 58hz needs. The new Heresy IVs play deeper by 10hz or so but I haven't heard those...a great match with my 12wpc SEP (Dennis Had Firebottle HO) amp, lots of headroom, not dirty or colored one bit as I only use a couple of watts, and I'm utterly in agreement that single ended tube amps are the s***.  Musical...they're musical...I even sent back a well reviewed Schiit Aegir as it sounded silly next to my tube amp. Not sure if Klipsch Heritage items were "designed for SETs" but man...a great sounding solution, and the now discontinued IIIs are being sold el cheapo here and there.

agree w Ralph the Vandys not a good match w SET

they really sing w a nice 40 wpc push pull tube amp

I recently, as an experiment, hooked up a pair of Golden Ear Triton 1s to my 9 wpc Elekit TU-8600R (300B output tubes). I discovered they worked beautifully! Plus the powered subwoofer sections really helped out! It tuns out that the Triton 1s are much more efficient than I thought. You can find them used at very reasonable prices as they are now discontinued. The bass enhancement is remarkable.