High end speakers at low volume

@ricco275  DEQX got stung by Covid. They were just getting ready to release the new Pre 4 and Pre 8 so they announced that the old units were discontinued (the Premate series) and then lost the supply of the very new processor they were putting in the new units. They had to redesign the Pre 4 and 8 around a new even more powerful processor and are getting ready to release the Pre 8 to a small group of us to test the Beta program. Once all the bugs are worked out they will be released to the public, I would guess about 6 months. The Pre 4, which is what you would be interested in and will be around $8000 American, the Pre 8 $10,000. They had not formally released prices yet so, these are estimates. These units are way more flexible than the other units. DEQX will set it up for you online but if you are adventurous you can connect you computer and program away. The Trinnov is idiot proof, set it and forget it and the Anthem is somewhere in between. The Anthem is the best value and I think the DEQX the highest performance overall. A lot of it is being able to make your system do exactly what you want in terms of dialing things in to your taste.

@phusis , I agree entirely, having a preamp with room control is not an excuse to avoid proper room acoustics. Room control has it's limitations. It can only boost a frequency so far before you either run out of power or hit 0 dBfs (digital clipping) Having said this, you are not going to create a loudness compensation curve via room treatment. The goal is to reverse the Fletcher-Munson curve at the volume you prefer to listen at. The curve changes with volume. The hinge point is about 1 kHz so there is significant boost by the time you get to both 500 Hz and 2 kHz. You can't do that with subwoofers. You might be able to do it with analog tone controls. In this regards a programable digital preamp is handily best. You can program curves for different volumes and load them into presets without any penalty. The only ADC you have to make is your phono stage. Everything else stays digital until the final output DACs of the preamp. Since the sub crossover and integration is handled by the preamp a 2.2 unit will have 4 DAC channels. I digitize my phono stage and do the RIAA correction digitally and am convinced it is an improvement. The difference is well within the realm of psychiatric influence so it is hard to be sure without strict rapid AB comparison and I cannot do that with one turntable and phono stage. For sure, it is not detrimental in any way.  

@mijostyn i see. I’m not going to wait 6 months. Between premate and Anthem? It seems Anthem preamp adds harshness to the sound. So Stereophile says at least

@ricco275 I am a T+A dealer and am recommending one of their speakers for this post as it fits your criteria. Look into the T+A Talis S 300 floorstander. It is not a high efficiency speaker, but it should be an excellent match with your Vitus. It is both very musical and still highly detailed. It is rated down to 25Hz despite having a small form factor, thanks to a fully machined aluminum cabinet. It plays very large for its size and images well at lower levels. The silver aluminum cabinet will likely match your Vitus and surpass your WAF criteria if you are both against black (I am!). 

I prefer this speaker to the $25K Wilson Yvette when I owned it. They are similar in tone, but I did prefer the Talis S 300 at lower listening levels, and it was more fitting for the room where the Wilson required more space than I could give it. 

The Talis was covered positively in The Absolute Sound a few years back as well, and the reviewer preferred it over the Wilson’s and Magicos in its price range. 

I have some other thoughts and will PM you direct. 

@ricco275 , let me have a look at the article and I will get back. Harshness is usually easily controlled by attenuating the area between 3 and 4 kHz just a coupld of dB.  

@ricco275 , I think you might have read the Stereophile STR integrated amplifier review. As far as I can tell Stereophile did not review the STR Preamplifier. There are many reviews of it though and most quite complementary. There are a few complaints but none of them are consistent among the reviews which usually means they don't exist. The STR is built to a price and it is not going to be as good as a $10,000 processor. The Trinnov is the other option at $11,000. It is a beautiful unit and has everything you need plus. I think it is a bit overpriced being French. I did not get one because I need more flexible bass management than it has. So, I have waited over a year for the DEQX and am still waiting but I do not think much longer.