Your thoughts on the Kef co-axial design was good thinking. Here are some other design attributes that i would look for in speakers given your intended use:
1) Spacing of drivers should be located very close together i.e. minimal space between them. The farther that the drivers are spaced apart, the more likely that comb filtering will take. Sitting so close to the speakers would make this more evident. You would hear the sound eminate from each driver rather than as a point souce. As such, a widely spaced design wouldn't have time to "blend together" as it would sitting further away from the speaker, producing a less cohesive presentation.
2) Look for a speaker that has smooth bass response with minimal peaking at resonance(s). Due to being both nearfield and factoring in room gain due to close wall proximity AND being in a corner, non-linear bass output would become overpowering rather quickly. Then again, one can somewhat fine-tune "peaky" output in the bass by altering the amount and density of sound damping material in the cabinet.
3) A speaker with limited vertical dispersion may come in handy. This will reduce the tendency for the sound to reflect off of your desk. If you go with such a design ( vertical MTM aka mid-tweeter-mid or "D'Appolito" ), tweeter / ear height becomes more critical.
This approach allows you to use two smaller drivers for better upper midrange response while providing lower mass for quicker transient response. Surface area is not hurt either as you have two drivers sharing the load rather than one larger driver. On top of that, efficiency can be increased by using multiple drivers, power handling can be increased by sharing the load and the amp, if properly designed, should provide measurably more power output into the lower impedance of the multiple drivers.
The wider horizontal dispersion of this type of a design shouldn't provide too much of a problem as the books located on each side of them will act as natural diffusers, especially if you stagger the depths of their bindings here and there.
4) While it would be a matter of personal preference, i would look for something with a soft dome tweeter. The thought of sitting on top of speakers with metal dome's blaring directly in my face already has my ears bleeding...
Hope this helps... Sean
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1) Spacing of drivers should be located very close together i.e. minimal space between them. The farther that the drivers are spaced apart, the more likely that comb filtering will take. Sitting so close to the speakers would make this more evident. You would hear the sound eminate from each driver rather than as a point souce. As such, a widely spaced design wouldn't have time to "blend together" as it would sitting further away from the speaker, producing a less cohesive presentation.
2) Look for a speaker that has smooth bass response with minimal peaking at resonance(s). Due to being both nearfield and factoring in room gain due to close wall proximity AND being in a corner, non-linear bass output would become overpowering rather quickly. Then again, one can somewhat fine-tune "peaky" output in the bass by altering the amount and density of sound damping material in the cabinet.
3) A speaker with limited vertical dispersion may come in handy. This will reduce the tendency for the sound to reflect off of your desk. If you go with such a design ( vertical MTM aka mid-tweeter-mid or "D'Appolito" ), tweeter / ear height becomes more critical.
This approach allows you to use two smaller drivers for better upper midrange response while providing lower mass for quicker transient response. Surface area is not hurt either as you have two drivers sharing the load rather than one larger driver. On top of that, efficiency can be increased by using multiple drivers, power handling can be increased by sharing the load and the amp, if properly designed, should provide measurably more power output into the lower impedance of the multiple drivers.
The wider horizontal dispersion of this type of a design shouldn't provide too much of a problem as the books located on each side of them will act as natural diffusers, especially if you stagger the depths of their bindings here and there.
4) While it would be a matter of personal preference, i would look for something with a soft dome tweeter. The thought of sitting on top of speakers with metal dome's blaring directly in my face already has my ears bleeding...
Hope this helps... Sean
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