High end speakers at low volume

@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.

@mijostyn it was stereophile review of both preamp and power amp and they clearly state more than once the harshness comes from the preamp. I’m tempted to get it anyway. Point is I am at the limit of the harshness in my system. Otherwise I should go for the DEQX premate +. That’s my budget limit.

ricco275, if I had your desired criteria for speakers I would definitely look at horns.  Very light diaphragms powered by strong magnet motors coupled with the minimal excursions required of diaphragms boosted by the impedance matching augmentation provided by horns make them very lively and detailed at low volumes.