Requesting Your Expertise - Best Options - High Sensitivity Speakers For A Smaller Room

I have a demo set (actual set in below video) and they are in your budget. Alex/Wavetouch audio

Eric Clapton - Tears in heaven, Krall - Temptation

My Favorite Picture of You - Guy Clark, Wavetouch audio live recording.

My Favorite Picture of You - Guy Clark

nightfall OP

@ mihorn Below video is 2A3 amp (4 watts) with Wavetouch v2 speaker. 8w tube amp is excellent match with v2 spkr. Alex/Wavetouch audio

WT v2 - The home entertainment show 2021 - Long Beach, CA

I was not familiar with the Wavetouch. It appears those speakers start at $6k,

Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2 EX V2.  Small, mid weight, wonderful timbre, astonishingly deep bottom end, low priced, easy to drive...  I think they’ll send you a demo pair, but not sure about that.  Ask and see - if not, what’s the return policy.  You’ll be amazed.  Sensitivity is 86, but I have used them in a 12 X19 room with that sized SET amp and they filled it very well.  

BMR Monitor is another great option.  Read the accolades, including Stereophile Recommended:        https://philharmonicaudio.com/products/bmr-monitor?variant=44392808612084  Sensitivity and my experience with these?  Same as the Ascend Acoustics above.   Both of these models are real jewels.  I own several pairs of $50K+ speakers and the BMRs and Ascend Acoustics continue to get a lot of listening.  I would not consider selling either. 

Another vote for the Reference 3A de Capos. Crystal and detailed without being clinical. High efficiency and beautiful sounding. 

@nightfall,

The notion of speakers being too big for the room is just one of those unsubstantiated statements or claims that has no evidence to back it up. It’s a non-issue. Choose the speakers you like and don’t reject something that you would love. Audio Note has been mentioned and I concur and suggest a used pair of Snells. Devore are just lovely and do make smaller units that may fit your budget.

The route I would go is to high-pass the mains relieving your low powered amp of transformer saturating low frequencies. If the speakers you choose have ports plug them rendering them a sealed box in performance rolling off at 12dB/ octave. You mention a sub but it is not clear to me if you own one or intend to. As far as I’m concerned subs are a necessity for any audio system regardless of room or speaker size. Even megabuck speakers need them because of unavoidable room modes. When sealing ports on a speaker you are removing additional bass sources which complicates set up. Now some will argue that you will lose bass and you will and that is the point which is to get quality over quantity. Full spectrum balance is achieved with subs (2 always better than 1) and for subs 2 parameters are paramount: must have variable phase and they must be sealed boxes and will therfore match the XO slope of the mains and provides the most seemless blend. Todays subs come with high damping factors unlike a low powered tube amp so there is no worry there because most but not all speakers are designed around solid state amplification.

If you are wondering why any subs are needed it’s because of room modes, that nasty phenomenon that plays hell with your sound. The only way to avoid this is to listen to your speakers in an anechoic chamber or mounted high in the air in an open field. Fact. When you position the speakers for a nice soundstage and precise imaging the bass will be compromised but the 2 subs will smooth that out. No more nasty peaks or nulls

Regarding high passing the mains this can be simply accomplised by inserting a PLLXO in the amp’s tape loop or soldered into the interconnect cable you just need to know the amps input impedance obtainable from the manufacturer. It consists of 1 capacitor and 1 resistor. Look up passive line level crossover.

Check out the link below and look for my 2 posts which goes into more detail on setting up multi-subs

Audiogon Discussion Forum

fritzspeaks

45 posts

08-15-2025 at 12:35am 

My 87 db speakers with series crossovers work and sound great with low powered tube amps including my 8 watt 300B, single EL34 SEP amp with 5 watts and my single EL84 2.3 watts per channel Decware amp in my 14 x 22 ft living room.  Series crossovers use much smaller and far fewer parts than regular crossovers that have many components that suck up power and sound.

Google any loudspeaker and see if they have a Stereophile review.  Go to the measurement page & check out the impedance & phase curves.  They will look like mountain ranges with peaks & dips.  No other loudspeakers will have smooth curves unless they use series crossovers.  Series crossovers sound much better in loudspeaker designs than old style regular crossovers. 

Here's a link to my Carrera BE loudspeakers with Dan Wright Modwright's 6 watt 300B tube headphone amp at the Capital Audio fest a few years back-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbroWg_cwCQ

Fritz, I would not have guessed it remotely possible that speakers of that sensitivity could be played with 8wpc. So much for what I know. Your speakers in that video are performing simply incredibly well. I am more than impressed. And I know Dan a little, and for him to be as impressed as he was, is really something. Kudo's to you for some brilliant speaker design. 

Do you still offer the Carrera BE's, a shown in that video from some years back? Or are they now known as the Carrera 7 BE's? Apologies, but I am struggling to find the answers on your website.