The OP had a specific question and some people start arguing over speakers. sheesh sometimes with this place
I don’t know what the driving electronics (Vinnie Rossi) or source (Playback Design) player had on the presentation but they were very impressed. I’ll have to check them out personally when I get the chance as I’ve never heard any of these.
Long time friends very involved in the business. No one trying to sell me anything. Now I’ll have to find out what the raving was about first hand if just to satisfy own curiosity.
Dayamm...Joe's Audio it is...Are you sure it pulses with "naturalness" in addition to pulsing with a "high level of refinement and transparency"?? If it did, Avanti and Joe could be a match made in heaven.
Did you bother to read what you quoted? My second sentence starts with, Other than the sensitivity rating.
I have some JMR Cantabile Jubilees that seem to satisfy most of your requirements. Great sounding speakers, with SS or tubes.
Yes. It sounds like you are looking for a speaker I just bought, the Devore Gibbon X. I'm waiting for my pair to be built. Sometime this summer I'll get them. Rated at 91.5 dB/W/M and that's at 8Ω. They are a true 8Ω speaker, making them easy to drive. Your amp will be very happy with them. When I listened to them, they regularly imaged outside the boxes, both higher and wider. The height of their image really surprised me. If there is a complaint by some, it's that they are bassy. They don't have too much bass for me. In fact, I loved their tonal balance. Still, I would call them full range plus. (Be careful of early reviews. I've been told John Devore re-voiced them along the way.) Two 9" long throw woofers mounted on the sides plus a port. I believe each woofer is in its own internal cavity. Devore says they go to 40 Hz. Absolutely. A soft dome makes them sweet and yet they have detail. On a Beach Boys recording, I could hear every effect Brian Wilson laid into the music. They were incredibly revealing. Your nearest dealer is in Edwardsville, Illinois, about 30 minutes northeast of St. Louis. It's Stereo Haven and is owned by Charlie Schnyder. Nice guy. Knows his stuff. While Charlie is into the music more than the gear, he has great gear. The Devore Gibbon X would be worth a drive and your time to give them a listen.
I don't think this dude will ever buy KEF (BTW I missed the boat on their coincidental source driver, internationally patented, that I designed and drafted a machine drawing back in the good ol' 80's but had zero knowledge on how to promote it) I named it exactly the same as KEF did, still have the drawings, but was fearful, then, that my idea would be stolen. Guess what? doing nothing was worse than stealing. I digress, Oh also also invented the child-proof outlet cover, also fearful that it would be stolen by one of the 800 number shysters out there... But the dude will never buy a KEF speaker! A bold prediction! He is against them!
Put me in that camp as well. eveytime I’ve auditioned them including the reference series, they don’t sound natural at all. Weirdest midrange and just not realistic timbre. Great soundstage tho
Just a mention on point 3, slight bass emphasis. If it's only maybe 1dB to 2dB, maybe inconsequential to neutrality, but I'm being too generous. In my experience in speaker building and most recently mastering my band tapes, I have rediscovered the myth that more low bass produces more powerful bass. In my mastering work, I do refer to the spectrum of the music I am working on. And, I have "played around" with familiar recordings by well known artists. More often than not, when I see a 40Hz to 60 Hz boost, the mids tend to become masked somewhat. This will commonly be followed by a slight dip from 150Hz to 300Hz... seemingly a good bass contour that produces powerful low bass. This isn't what happens in practice. You'd be surprised what balanced wide band does... the all important 200Hz to 300Hz upper bass range that covers a lot of bandwidth. I have adjusted some recordings, just to experiment, and was astonished by what the mid to upper bass range does to add power and energy to bass. The bass tightens up, has great musical tone, (bass tone extends up into the 2 kHz treble range also) bass becomes more defined, and more powerful. I guess this is more about not emphasizing anything, but to allow the bass to breathe, to set a lot of air into motion, and this covers all of the bass range. If we want powerful bass without messing with neutrality, and not mask anything, adding a lot of low bass (too much low bass) works against all of that. Bass extension can be awesome, not easy to achieve. We need more amplifier power and speaker inefficiency required to get that. A larger 12 inch woofer has a hard time to produce 25 Hz... very difficult without impedance matching to the air, or by horn design. In other words, high speaker efficiency and bass extension are diametrical opposites. One of them must be compromised to some degree, large bass horns exceptional to this, or a wall of 24 inch Hartley woofers!
So many are just mentioning their own speakers and I didn’t want to be that guy, but now I am, and it’s only because I respect the OP’s input in this forum and I believe their enquiry is sincere. I’ve auditioned so many speakers and lived with B&W 800 series (nice) and Polks (don’t remember model but not so nice), but the Rockports I got a few years ago provided a real shift in my appreciation of sound reproduction. Despite using solid state amplification and a digital source they were very organic and lively. I don’t know or care about numbers and measurements, just really like the natural sound of these speakers.
I definitely think that you should listen to Sonus Faber. The Homage and Olympica Nova lines that I've listened to check off your boxes, in my opinion, but they do have a "sound" of their own so they might fall short on the "transparency" criteria - whatever that means to you. You don't specify if build quality, finish, and appearance matter to you, but if they do then Sonus Faber has the upper hand.
@timind Sorry, I have read over? (didn't see it). But I still don't understand why the speakers are suggested. There are many speakers outside that fulfill some of the requirements but not the sensitivity and that is a key part.