Best speakers for 2A3 SET amplifier?

Wihtout knowing the size of your room, the type of music to which you listen, and how loud you ultimately want to go, it's rather hard to make appropriate suggestions. However, the received wisdom that you NEED, e.g., "at least 97 dB" or a "a horn over 100 dB sensitivity" is not true in all, and I would say most, cases. Many speakers that, on specs alone, would seem not to work well theoretically do in fact produce supremely wonderful sound in a reasonably-sized (say, up to a 10' x 20') room. In this category of smallish and easily affordable speakers would be the lower priced ProAcs and Audio Notes, Dick Sequerra's Metronome II and III, j.c. morrison's wonderful Pipedreams (before that name was filched by another company), Tannoys, and some of the simpler Zalytron designs. If you're handy with a saw, you might also consider a TQWT design -- you can build a pair of outrageously wonderful speakers, including single driver units with amazing coherence, for what is essentially dinner money! There's simply no need to spend 10K+ for a monstrous pair of horn-loaded speakers; I'd say you should consider trying a lot of alternatives first. Have fun coming up with your own "Best of Show" speaker!

Phil, I wasn't denying your right to your opinion -- I didn't say that everyone would be happy with less efficient speakers, as you obviously would not be. But if you read Kweifi's latest post, you might agree, given the size of the room and the intended use, that he could possibly be satisfied with lesser dynamics or sheer loudness than might satisfy you in favor of other trade-offs, so your blanket rule might not apply to his particular case. So enjoy your system in peace -- but please don't state that your "need" applies to everyone, as I, for one, certainly don't "need" 100+ dB horns to enjoy my 2A3 and 300B-based systems, okay? You didn't say that "you" need those horns and he might too -- you made a rule for everyone, everywhere, who owns 2A3 amps, that horns, and 100+ dB ones at that, are "needed," thus denying anyone else the right to an opinion that differs from yours. BTW, what horns do you have? I'm curious if I've ever heard them, or if you designed and built them yourself. Regards, Mjm

Phill -- Not to beat a dead horse, but there are many who think that horns play no music well (I hasten to add I'm not in that camp -- but also to add that I've never heard a horn that plays "everything" well). And your response was, to quote fully: "You need a horn over 100 dB sensitivity." That's it -- no more. Any "quality" horn? Klipsches? Altec VOTs? Or only your multi-kilobuck horns? What defines "quality?" You've heard horns that fully reproduce the bottom octave? Where? You've heard every dynamic speaker, and not one will reproduce music well on 3.5 watts? Brentworths? Lowthers? And what are "realistic levels?" The average low 80s dB of the concert hall? Or must realistic levels include ear damage and pants flapping? Most audiophile society meetings I've attended have featured music at headache-inducing levels -- is this realistic enough? I can attest that both ProAcs and Von Schweikerts, for example, will do full-scale concert dynamics in a 10 x 20 room, with overhead to spare, on a typical 2A3 amp. And there are many other candidates...have you heard all of them? Any of them? Or are you just telling everybody that you like your speakers, and everyone else needs 100+ dB horns because you do? Or is it possible that your best is not the best for everyone, everywhere?

Trelja -- Is 100 - 110 Db necessary to replicate the full dynamic scale of an orchestra? Having sat in the orchestra with SPL meter in hand, even Wagnerian climaxes barely nudged into the 95- 97 Db range, orchestra in fullest throat. I think what happens is that people confuse the sheer volume pressure of air being moved by the orchestra with loudness (even a soft tympani strike will move lots of air, albeit at very low volume) -- and no home speaker of any stripe will reproduce that effect with realism, horn, planar, or dynamic design. So instead, the volume control moves skyward to compensate, to give us that feeling of being enveloped in huge masses of air -- and we wind up listening at levels that far exceed the actual concert levels (please note that this applies to an unamplified symphonic concert orchestra -- the last Who concert I attended went waaaay over 110 Db, but then, my ears rang for quite some time afterward! Have you ever left a 3 hour Mahler concert complaining of the loudness?). So in my former living room, peaks in the mid-nineties were indeed sufficient to reproduce realistic levels, i.e., the actual concert level -- but as noted, no speaker will allow you to believe that 120 instruments are playing in that same 10' x 20' room.