High end speakers at low volume

Back in the day receivers normally had a “Loudness” button for boosting the bass at low listening levels. Don’t see that much anymore but it worked. At very low levels speakers with limited bass output to begin with will not sound very good. At these levels I think my Cornwalls with the huge 15” woofer sound much nicer than my little Spendor 4/5’s do. 

I have a similar situation to what you described, especially for the need to mostly listen at low volumes.  After a lot of trial and error (including several Klipsch models and Zu Dirty Weekends), I finally tried Wilson.  Used the Tune Tots for a while and then stepped up to Sabrina X.   For me, the Sabrina X’s offered the best overall low volume experience. (As an added plus, they are a blast when you can crank them up a bit 😁).

My lesson learned is that an extended live audition is absolutely worth the hassle despite it being hard sometimes to find a way to hear all the options you want to consider.  Best of luck to you in your pursuits!

@jackjohnson316 thanks I’ll check the Buchardt. Problem with Zu is that there’s no dealer in Europe and I should buy them without listening. Also I didn’t understand if working well with classic rock music.

@pscar glad to hear your feedback. First one to consider Sabrina X good at low volume perhaps !

@ricco275  

Pros:

- Point source (soundstage/imaging)

- Coherency. You're not forcing multiple drivers to work with eachother

- No Crossover. Crossovers smear the sound, so you lose a noticeable amount of detail in the crossover region. It's not something you can measure with certainty on a graph. It usually shows up as a slight dip.

- Clear midrange/treble

- Bass speed (if transmission line is used)

- Efficiency

Cons:

- Stigma. The "science people" are convinced that single driver speakers are inferior. Because dogma.

- Not as loud as 2 or 3 way speakers. You typically use single drivers at moderate/low volumes. There's definitely an ideal volume for this design, and it's not party music loud. 

- Beaming of high frequencies at loud volumes. A phase plug helps with that. Better drivers help with that. 

- Most single driver speakers with cheap drivers have uneven frequency response with for example no bass and/or shouty midrange. So at the budget level you're better off using cheap drivers and a crossover. Some single driver speakers have filters to fix this issue. Good fullrange drivers are few and far between. EMS and Cube Audio are good examples. And speaker designers love to tune the sound with transmission line cabinets. 

- It's harder to get room filling bass with a single driver. You can go with a larger driver (21cm) with a whizzer cone. But you'll compromise on treble and imaging. You can go with a smaller driver (4 inch) and get amazing midrange/treble/imaging at the expense of bass. Again, some unconventional speaker designers achieve bass with small drivers through specially tuned "active" cabinets which resonate like a musical instrument. Or use a sub. 

- Resale value suffers because of the stigma. It's not like you're buying a Sonus Faber, Wilson Audio or Focal speaker which flies off of the shelves. 

I will say that the OGY works beautifully with Classic Rock, Blues and Jazz. Because guitars and vocals sound so natural. You'll just want more rumble with heavy metal music (a sub helps a lot with that, but you might enjoy a Buchardt S400 more without the sub). 

If you're in Europe, then the best speaker I heard for the money is the Audax AM21 assembled speaker from La Maison du Haut Parleur. They do it all! I just got the OGY instead because I have a smaller room.