Quality speakers that don't need tons of power

If you like a refined, full bodied sound that is more mid-hall in perspective, then the Silverline Bolero speaker is easy to drive and just beautiful sounding. 92 db , 8 ohms and very easy to drive.

Devore Fidelity - Gibbon 9s or even better, the Reference Silverbacks.

Coincident Eclipse

Take a look at Zu Audio. I had a chance to hear some the other day and although they weren't broken in yet I was impressed with the quality of what I heard.

At RMAF, the Daedalus and Audiokinesis sounded excellent.

Zu and Audio Note.

If 100wpc is your benchmark, I think there are probably more speakers than not that can be adequately driven by that level of power. Certainly, some speakers like more power to sound their best (depending on room size, etc.), but 100wpc will drive most speakers. The really tough speaker matching occurs at 50wpc and down, IMO. Nonetheless, in addition to the excellent choices already mentioned, I would throw in Merlin and WLM (distributed by Red Wine) as relatively efficient speaker lines to look at.

Why? If one could afford expensive speakers, I would imagine they could afford the power necessary to drive them.

Maybe or maybe not...there were several reasons for this thread, one of them being that I for one believe that 10K speaker with 2K integrated should give you more for your money (most of the time anyway) than 2K speaker with 10K integrated...I've seen system with hard to drive 6k speaker that needs so much power, you need to spend just as much on amplification...

But I didn't want to steer this conversation in a different direction, I do believe you should get your favourite speaker and build around it and if it happens to need strong amplification, so be it...interesting case with Silverline Bolero, whcih uses Dynaudio drivers but it's much easier to drive than Dynaudio...anyway, thanx for all the responses so far

I would look at Focal...maybe the Electra line. If you go uses a 1027 be will be well below budget.

Horns. Will allow you to experiment with amps on a qualitative, rather than quantitative, basis.

FWIW, I think the 'interesting case' is due to the crossover and Silverlines implementation of the drivers. I have another set of speakers with identical drivers (except for the tweeter) but different cross-overs, cross-over points, and boxes/design. Those speakers are fairly flat FR types, 86db efficiency, and fairly flat impedence curve (ideal for tubes). They sure don't sound like the Boleros, which I have owned for 2 1/2 years and highly indorse.

I use small tubed PP pentode/triode amps which cost less than 3K. Works for me! I'm sure there are 'better' electronics but I've been there/done that and can pass on the opportunity to go down that road again. :-)

There's some speakers that have powered subwoofers like Vandersteen I think...does that mean they dont need as much power to drive the rest of their system effectively?

Reference 3a...tailor the model to your room size .

Happy tunes .

Tannoys are fairly easy to drive and are pretty efficient.