Speakers that are good with tubes

@hide45  Good summary.  Hopefully the OP hasn't bougth or at least married to a tube amp yet.   To me they should be bought as a pair, however, there is a lot of wiggle room in choosing both.  For example, I recommend an SET.  However, my current primary amp is not an SET, it just sounds like one (Decware ZMA).   A lot of people like horns, I've never found them to suit my preference.  I am currently listening to a very well designed pair of 4 way speakers with a high sensitivity, very flat frequency response, and excellent phase performance.  Midrange to die for. 

But in general my suggestion is less than 10 watts in an SET, and the best deisnged high sensitivity speakers you can find.

Jerry

@hilde45 

To be clear, I agree with you on the importance of capable high quality output transformers. Equally important is the amplifier power supply robustness and quality. The OP is a bit vague and general. I believe posters are just trying to abide and explain what parameters determine speaker “friendly to tube amplifiers “.

Charles 

Not sure what amp you have, but if it is a good quality amp and you want to hear the music as it was recorded, Magneplaners are the only choice.

If you don't really care about that, pretty much any quality box will do.

Cheers!

@carlsbad I have some buddies here in Denver area with that low-watt, high efficiency approach. It’s pretty magical, and I’m tempted, myself. But that’s a much more difficult path for me at the moment, as it would require getting rid of all my amps and speakers and starting over. I’m moving incrementally, and am currently pretty happy with my non-SET amps (Mono 60’s are great with the KT77s, and the Pass XA25 is really nice, too).

@charles1dad Agreed. Sometimes these threads are like rivers which develop tributaries. Perhaps that’s where I floated!

@richopp Would you say Magneplanars are the only choice -- above and beyond GR Research, Spatial, and others of a similar ilk? Curious as to how you arrived at this very exclusive conclusion.

@richopp We got it. You're a magnaplaner man, through and through.  But I will mention that I was pursuing an electrostatic speaker system when I fell down the tube rabbit hole.  My second system is still Martin Logan CLS.  It wasn't until I found tubes that I was able to exceed the clarity and definition that the electrostatic speaker gives you.  Not bashing your speakers but pointing out that there are other options.  BTW, this is not a magnaplaner thread.