What Speakers are Available Today Similar to the Von Schweikert DB99?

Many speaker manufactures make hi efficiency speakers still. If you like them or not is of course a personal thing. I find many of them are: horn loaded, Single driver wide banders, combination of horn and box’s and Open baffles. Of course, there or other configurations but I think these are the primary designs in the hi efficiency market. What do you consider efficient? To me its 98db and above for others it lower. I feel the 92db-98db area to me middle of the road efficiency, as most speaker designers inflate their specs. True hi efficiency to me is above 98db and this is generally the horn loaded market. 105db is not uncommon on the large horn system for example. The middle area is filled with various designs so lots more there. 

The db99, as the name implies, is a high efficiency speaker which the manufacturer specifies at 98 to 99 db, with 8 ohm nominal impedance. It is a 2.5 way speaker with a built in powered subwoofer. I am unaware of any similar 2.5 way speakers with such high sensitivity and impedance.

I own db99 SE’s. They are close to 20 years old but still perform like a champ. I use them with 300B amps. The Seas and Scanspeak drivers in the db99 are very similar, if not the same, to what was in a pair of Joseph Audio speakers 10-20 years ago. My db99’s also have custom midrange drivers and Hovland Musicaps. I suspect I would have a sick feeling in my stomach if I ever gave these up, but in case I have to, or just wanted to change, there are several horn, coaxial, and single driver speakers that I would be interested in.

I have owned many pairs of VS speakers going all the way back to the original VR4. I had the pleasure of hearing the DB99 in a dealer showroom ~2000 or so. I still have memories of those speakers being driven by VAC mono blocks. That was some impressive sound.

Apart from horns or single drivers, one of the *high sensitivity* towers with a following: Daedalus.

My db99's with matching super tweeters, are also still working well.

I don't know of any other similar speaker with a built in subwoofer made to use with any amp.

Zu Audio

Yes, ZU