Non-fatiguing speakers in $10K range?

@mikhailark, ime a "relaxed, non-fatiguing sound" is predicted by a gently downward-sloping first-arrival sound, and an off-axis sound that has a very similar spectral balance. I’m not a big fan of deliberately introducing dippage into the 2-6 kHz region you mentioned, as that can remove some of the upper harmonic richness that draws you into the music. 

Also, horns came up in the thread, and imo prosound horns (like you’d hear at a concert) are not representative of what good home audio horns can do. Most prosound horns deliberately introduce diffraction (via a sharp discontinuity in the horn itself) to improve the uniformity of their coverage pattern, but the downside is the introduction of a harshness that becomes increasingly audible and objectionable as the SPL goes up. Good home audio horns and waveguides do not have this issue, and have the advantage of reducing the spectral discrepancy between the first-arrival sound and the reflection field, which in turn is ime a contributor to long-term fatigue-free listening.

If you do find speakers in your price range that have the characteristics you want, don’t overdo it with the absorptive room treatments. If too much high frequency energy is removed from the reflection field, listening fatigue can actually be increased. This may be somewhat counter-intuitive so let me know if you’d like an explanation.

Can you give us a guesstimate of your room dimensions?

How critical is the appearance of the speakers?

Do you have a ballpark idea of the weight limitations, given that you’ll presumably have to move these by yourself?

Best of luck in your quest!

Duke

@mikhailark , thank you for the additional information.

That’s a nice big room, which imo implies that you will probably want fairly high voltage sensitivity for use with your 30-watt Pass Labs amp. You might consider speakers with a voltage sensitivity in the 94 dB ballpark. By way of comparison, this would put you in the same SPL ballpark as a pair of Revel Salon 2’s driven by 200 watts per channel.

When faced with the prospect of having to move fairly heavy speakers up and down driveways and stairs, I invested in a dolly with large pneumatic tires and nylon stair-skids. It wasn’t cheap, but I’ve gotten nearly two decades of use out of it for a variety of roles beyond moving speakers. Something like that might widen the range of options you can consider.

Another possibility is planning from the outset to use subwoofers for the bottom end, so that the size and weight can be distributed among multiple smaller loads, even if the total size and weight ends up being greater.

The Pi Speakers 3Pi with the Delta Pro 12 upgrade, or the 4Pi, plus at least two subs, are what I would suggest. Normally these are kits but I think Pi Speakers either has a builder or can put you in touch with one. The things I do are conceptually similar and imo Wayne Parham is a superb designer. The custom-designed horn he uses is excellent, and Wayne was one of my crossover-design teachers.

Duke

@mikhailark , I have to apologize for getting your amps mixed up - somehow I was thinking low-powered Class A Pass Labs, when it’s actually low-powered (but not as low-powered) Class A Accuphase. Speakers with a voltage sensitivity at least in the lower 90’s still make sense to me given your room size, because imo clipping on the peaks would degrade the sound quality.

I owned a pair of Accuphase stereo amps years ago. They could be bridged to run as two very powerful mono amps, but they sounded better in stereo mode. So imo it is quite possible that, despite your amp’s extraordinary ability to maintain full rated power output into very low impedances, it will sound its best into an 8-ohm load.

I mentioned PiSpeakers, and you mentioned measurements. My favorite from their lineup is the 7Pi, which is an innovative corner horn type speaker that actually has excellent measured response. It would probably need subwoofers so that pushes the cost possibly beyond your price range, but if you appreciate innovative, outside-the-box thinking, you might take a look at it.

Just to be clear, I have zero commercial interest in Pi Speakers. I compete against them.

Duke