High Efficiency Speakers

If you have not already, check out Hammerdynamics.com and their $575.00 speaker kit (you supply the cabinet materials). Since you are considering the Bottlehead kits I will assume that you do not want to spend a lot of money. I have not listened to the Hammer model, but do find it interesting and would like to try a pair in the future. Klipsch has new(er) under $700.00 models that should be available on Ebay for much less. I checked a couple of models out a while back, but they did not do it for me. You could get by with a recent version of the Coincident Triumph Signature speakers (which sound great, IMO) but at your power level I suspect that you would either sooner or later desire a more efficient speaker. You are being very realistic with your target of 96db. I just tried Reynaud Twins with a 7 watt/channell tube amp and they match very well, even though they are rated 90bd/4ohms, so there seems to be more than the numbers at work in these types of set ups. I chickened out and did not go with 2A3's because I did not really want to have large speakers in the living room, plus I am not up to building the Hammer kits at this time (good high efficiency speakers can/do run into money). Good luck and check out Audio Asylums SET and High Efficiency Speaker forums for additional info. David.

Lak: I'm glad that someone else has heard of them (the Hammer's) plus a personal reccomendation from a friend at that. I have listened to old Lowthers and found them to be too bright for most source material, IMO, but now understand that they have been tamed down a bit by changing the voice coils in various models. I would like to listen to the new breed of Lowthers but still suspect that I would not be willing to condition the room enough to bring out their best.