Low volume music

I am enjoying my Primaluna Prologue 2 with Reference 3a
De Capo i speakers . This set up is in a small room but the same principles apply for any size room , just gage your speaker size and amp power accordingly .
You want to look for highly resolving speakers that don't require too much power and are designed for tube use . Look for efficiency in the 90db. range with a fairly flat impedence curve .
Find an amplifier that has good micro details , extension and dynamics .
Your source will also be an important part of the set up . Here look for the same characteristics as the amp .
When auditioning , if it sounds better when you turn it up
it is not the system for your purpose .

Good luck .

Owning both tubed and solid state amps, I find that the tubes do perform better at lower volume levels than does MY solid state amp. My tubes are mono BATs and my solid state is a Mark Levinson 331.5 (BATs during the colder months, ML during A/C months).

I think a good combo is tubes with high efficiency speakers supported by a sub (even a small Q series from Rel) would help deliver a little umph at the bottom.

everyone can give suggetions all day long but what is comes down to is that you go to a dealer that knows what they are doing and have been in the business a long time. find someone you fell you can trust. then listen until your ears find something they cant live without. dont buy until you found exacly what you want

With out a doubt I'd check into Quad esl's...

In my experience, the best for low volume listening are slightly-bright speakers that have very good analytical power and sensitivity. The amps don't matter as much as the speakers do so you need to tackle the speaker choice first. Triangles are a great candidate. I have never heard any speakers sound as good as they do at low volumes.

Tube amps are a good choice as well. I find that SS amps' lose bass at low volumes whereas tube amps don't. The Fletcher Muson curve will tell you that human hearing needs extra bass at low volume to get a linear response. So keep that in mind.

Arthur