Honestly, at that distance in that small a room just about any good quality bookshelf/mini-monitor type speaker will do. Especially if he's not out to blow his socks off. Which is not a strength of SET anyway. Listening for quality, inner detail, that spooky-real SET character is gonna come through just fine almost no matter what he uses.
If the room was a lot bigger, or your friend was a lot more experienced, I would offer different advice. But another perfectly good reason for prioritizing sound you like over efficiency and "SET compatible" is he gets going and finds out without too much trouble. One sure way of sucking the fun out of anything is making it harder than it needs to be.
You know another reason, the signal matters more than the speakers anyway. Sorry. But it does. The most awesome SET amp and speakers in the world are not gonna cut it if connected with lamp cord and plugged into rubber freebie power cords. Good wire and peripherals on the other hand (HFT, etc) along with that SET will make just about any speakers perform like he won't believe.
If the room was a lot bigger, or your friend was a lot more experienced, I would offer different advice. But another perfectly good reason for prioritizing sound you like over efficiency and "SET compatible" is he gets going and finds out without too much trouble. One sure way of sucking the fun out of anything is making it harder than it needs to be.
You know another reason, the signal matters more than the speakers anyway. Sorry. But it does. The most awesome SET amp and speakers in the world are not gonna cut it if connected with lamp cord and plugged into rubber freebie power cords. Good wire and peripherals on the other hand (HFT, etc) along with that SET will make just about any speakers perform like he won't believe.