Good speakers at low volume?

As Duke noted, you're fighting the Fletcher-Munson curve at low volumes.

If you're an apartment dweller going the dynamic "cone" transducer route (assuming a somehat small listening room):

- high efficiency 2 ways

- good small footprint stereo subs designed for music, not ht

- rat shak spl meter

Use the rat shak spl meter to equalize relative volumes of the 2 ways and subs at your preferred listening volume.

I'm not fond of a single sub, as harmonics extend well above 60hz, rendering the subs localizable. If adjacent to your mains, you won't notice if blended well.

It's a bit of a complicated setup, but there's no getting around the reality of how we "hear" at low volumes. It's the loudspeaker paradigm I use, being a low volume listener myself. I have a moderate sized room in a single family home, so can use a 2 way line array for a nice combination of high efficiency and "dynamics" ability.

I've not lived with 'stats, so can't comment on whether they could simplify matters for low volume apartment listening.

Thanks, Johnk.

That PHY driver has a very warm and rich tonal balance, sounds lovely at low and medium levels, will play loud better than most fullrange drivers, and in a good cabinet it would be an excellent choice in your situation. In my experience with that driver, getting the cabinet right is critical to good tonal balance and good articulation. Johnk makes very very good cabinets. This is a very different direction from Dynaudio and Dali, but imho would better serve in this case.

Duke

I was in your position at one point and live in an apt. Look no further than the Gallo's 3.1 ref. Very dynamic, sounds great at low volume and not too big. Had the maggies 12 before and though vocal transparancy sounded amazing, it lacked dynamics.

Well, how big is your apartment? There are probably no better low-level speakers available than the Soundlab electrostatics... :-)
I believe that it has to do with their patented spacing of the cells that make up each panel. Just amazing to listen to at both low and high levels!

My room is mid size, maybe 17 by 12 feet..thanks for all the inputs