High Efficiency Speakers

Lak: I'm glad that someone else has heard of them (the Hammer's) plus a personal reccomendation from a friend at that. I have listened to old Lowthers and found them to be too bright for most source material, IMO, but now understand that they have been tamed down a bit by changing the voice coils in various models. I would like to listen to the new breed of Lowthers but still suspect that I would not be willing to condition the room enough to bring out their best.

Kochel horns

Take a listen to Reference 3a (http://www.reference3a.com/) if you can. I had their Master Controle years ago and it remains the finest speaker I've had in my system. Enjoy!

Hi! The site that Lak referred to is "Best speaker for 2A3 amplifiers" (Thread 968284191), which I had started. I have used both Coincident Super Eclipse and the more efficient new Silverline Sonata speakers with a Don Garber Fi Super X 2A3 stereo amplifier. The Coincidents (now sold) at 92 dB were a little difficult to control in the base. I have found the Silverlines (95 dB) to be excellent speakers: good frequency response through out the range, good soundstaging, and good transparency. However, in large-scale orchestral music, I find that there is not quite enough dynamic headroom, but this may be a limitation of the amplifier design or the output of the 2A3 tubes. My current feeling is that you will need an amp with slightly more power for 2A3's, perhaps something using 300B's, and that if you want to keep the 2A3 amp, then you need to go to efficiencies above 100 dB. This will pretty much restrict you to horn speakers. However, horn speakers do have a different sound and a much smaller sweet spot and you should audition carefully if you are interested. I understand that there are a number of ways to go: these include something of the Avantgarde (price of entry is more than $15K for the DUOs) or Oris (about $4K in kit form from Wellborne) variety, or something like the Lamhorns (about $6K and $9.5K) (www.rlacoustique.com), which have received some outstanding reviews recently.

Just talked to some folks building a new speaker that while production hasn't gotten much press yet--just a news blurb in Audiophile Voice (Vol 6, No 6). The speaker is known as the Ikonoklast and can be found at www.warrengregoire.com. Their literature states "the excellent downward dynamic range also imples that there is virtually no lower limit to usable amplifier power. How about 2 or 3 Watts?" Indeed there specs support this: 8ohm, 95db sens. Very usual design, but the one I'd investigate if I were building 2A3 system on the cheap. Good luck with your new system.