In my experience electrostats and high efficiency speakers do the best job of giving you good clarity and detail at low volume levels.
In my opinion a fullrange electrostat is probably the optimum, but also a fairly expensive approach. A high quality single-driver speaker would probably be a more cost-effective approach.
Multidriver speakers have multiple challenges. Different drivers often have different power compression characteristics, such that the tonal balance of a multidriver speaker can vary with volume level. With low and medium efficiency speakers this level-dependent tonal balance shift is often significant within the volume range encountered in a home system. You may have heard speakers that sound dull at low volume levels, just right at medium to perhaps medium-high volume levels, and bright or even harsh at high volume levels. That's level-dependent tonal balance shift. If you'd like I can explain one of the primary mechanisms behind it. High efficiency multi-driver speakers can have it too, but it generally sets in at higher volume levels than are likely in a home setting.
Personally I place a high priority on low-level articulation even if the speaker is going to be played at high volume levels, because there will still be lots of low-level detail going on. And in my experience a speaker that still sounds good at very low volume levels is less likely to become fatiguing over a long listening session, so I encourage listening at very low volume levels as part of a thorough audition when you're speaker shopping.
Duke
In my opinion a fullrange electrostat is probably the optimum, but also a fairly expensive approach. A high quality single-driver speaker would probably be a more cost-effective approach.
Multidriver speakers have multiple challenges. Different drivers often have different power compression characteristics, such that the tonal balance of a multidriver speaker can vary with volume level. With low and medium efficiency speakers this level-dependent tonal balance shift is often significant within the volume range encountered in a home system. You may have heard speakers that sound dull at low volume levels, just right at medium to perhaps medium-high volume levels, and bright or even harsh at high volume levels. That's level-dependent tonal balance shift. If you'd like I can explain one of the primary mechanisms behind it. High efficiency multi-driver speakers can have it too, but it generally sets in at higher volume levels than are likely in a home setting.
Personally I place a high priority on low-level articulation even if the speaker is going to be played at high volume levels, because there will still be lots of low-level detail going on. And in my experience a speaker that still sounds good at very low volume levels is less likely to become fatiguing over a long listening session, so I encourage listening at very low volume levels as part of a thorough audition when you're speaker shopping.
Duke