Suggestions for high efficiency speakers?

@atmasphere , those Hartsfield loudspeakers bring back some great memories. When I was a kid I'd take the trolly into Harvard Square where there was a store called The Audio Lab. They had the best used department. I got my TD 124 there.They also carried JBL and they had the Hartsfield speakers on display and to my young ears they were incredible. I thought they sounded better than K Horns. They were much more aggressive and in your face driven by Marantz Model 9's.

The Classic Audio Loudspeakers T1.5 look like very nice speakers but at $72,000 are pretty steep. In comparison to Wison or Magico speaker they are probably a great value. I have never heard a pair but at that price I would certainly travel to hear them. Which model do you own?

For 15K I would go with the Klipsh Cornwalls and subwoofers. 18 watts will give you a severe headache and the limited dispersion is IMHO a huge benefit. 

but simply that all mayn’t cry ’halleluja’ over the sonic outcome of the DBA approach, even after being preconditioned by theory.

You can look at this as theory or fact; works the same regardless: at 80Hz the waveform is about 14 feet long. The ear cannot acknowledge any sound until the entire waveform has passed by the ear. It cannot know the frequency of the bass note until 2 or 3 iterations have occured.

In most rooms, if 80Hz, the wave has met the rear wall and is on its way back by the 3rd iteration. It might cancel the energy of the incoming wave, causing a loss of bass. One important takeaway is that the bass, unless the room is enormous, is entirely reverberant.

That is why a DBA works so well- as long as the subs have no output above 80Hz (otherwise they will draw attention to themselves).

The Classic Audio Loudspeakers T1.5 look like very nice speakers but at $72,000 are pretty steep. In comparison to Wison or Magico speaker they are probably a great value. I have never heard a pair but at that price I would certainly travel to hear them. Which model do you own?

The actual price depends on which options are installed. My speakers are the T-3s. They are custom built (slightly taller) so as to be flat to 20Hz. I have the field coil motors on the midrange, with beryllium diaphragms employing a Kapton surround- so no breakups until about 35KHz. They are quite smooth and the field coils make them as fast as ESLs.

I'm a big fan of field coils- they and ESLs offer speed (and for the same reason- the M.O. uses an external power supplythat isn't available any other way. The ear/brain has a tipping point- if the speed isn't there, the brain moves the music processing from the limbic system to the cerebral cortex- robbing the music of some of its emotional impact.

@larryi ,

"They don't make much changes to their gear just for the sake of churning the market, so the older stuff remains current for a longer period of time." 

Excellent observation! They release a fully developed and mature product from the start. No need for frequent updates seemingly every 6 months. I admire that approach by Audio Note and other brands that are similar in this regard. These type of products do seem to age very gracefully.

Charles

I am also a fan of field coil drivers.  I've heard a number of Western Electric cone and compression field coil drivers, G.I.P. Laboratory clones of Western Electric field coil drivers and an outrageous improved version of the Western Electric 597 compression tweeter (the G.I.P. souped up version costs something like $60k a pair), Classic Audio speakers with field coil drivers, Voxativ drivers, Lowther field coil full range drivers, Supravox woofers, Goodman woofers, Feastrix full range drivers, and a couple of other full range drivers that I don't know who made them.  I particularly like both the orginal and clones of Western Electric 597 tweeters and the 555 midrange compression driver.  I also love the Goodman field coil woofer.  But, what I really would love to have the most is the Jensen/ERPI M10 fullrange driver (13" driver) with a 597 tweeter on top--that is sort of my dream system. 

Also, while I do like quite a few field coil drivers, I also like many competing permanent magnet drivers.  I think that the permanent magnet version of the Western Electric 555 compression driver is at least as good (but a whole lot rarer and more expensive) and my very favorite midrange compression driver is the Western Electric 713b, which is a permanent magnet driver.