Devore or Audio Note or other sensitive speakers: wanting to listen in Denver

@keithr 
Thanks for your suggestions. Nothing I've heard about Zu makes me think they'd be better than some of the others, here. Classical is a *must* for me. My brother in law loves rock and so he's really headed for Zu. I would love to hear Zu but local options are limited.

I don't think I'm headed all the way down to SET. I am trying to land in the middle, with tube amps running either KT66 up to KT 150 and/or a Pass XA 25 (25 to 50w on peaks).

@charles1dad 

There are many very good choices available to suit your objectives.

Thank you for those recommendations. This thread is becoming *everything* I hope for in a forum. Not just recommendations of the usual brands — though hearing personal experiences is very valuable and of course I might actually be able to hear them — but other "under the radar" options. That's how I initially found Salk and Fritz's bookshelves. 

One thing I'm learning is that certain makers just aren't *oriented* toward one kind of amplification or another. Not just that their speakers' sensitivities are mostly under 90db, but that even if they have one or two speakers with greater sensitivity, they don't really design with tube amps in mind. That's ok, but it's not exactly easy to glean from the way they describe themselves.

@charles1dad I'm looking now at those Coherents. I see no reason they might not best Devores for the money. But re-selling is probably harder for all these lesser known brands, eh?

If u fancy a trip to Kansas City, w some notice, u r welcome to listen to my system.  0/93s with Lejonklou Boazu and DCs network bridge for a source.  Best of luck in ur search.

@mrmanisundaram Thank you! I might do that in the next year or so. I see there is an Audio Note dealer in town, too. Flights from Denver run as low as $27 each way. Small price to pay to hear two very top candidate speakers. 

Ok, just summing up what I've learned so far about this topic, there are a few different axes to navigate.

Sensitivity — while it's clear that there are speakers around 89-90 db and 100 db, what range between those, say, 93-96db (and considering ohms, and graphs about all this as well) is out there. Many options have been raised on this thread.

Re-sale — I'm really learning how many very good speaker companies there are out there that one would never hear of without a forum. That's a great thing to learn, but if this is not an endgame speaker, how hard or at what cost would re-sale be? A Devore would sell easily; Coherent audio or NSMT? Might take a hit. (Then again, one might not pay as much up front...)

Design types — ribbon, concentric, active woofer, open baffle, MTM, etc. Again, a variety of styles to navigate here, all to be  cross- referenced with top two factors.

And, yes, of course anything above has to be heard, tried in one's room with one's gear, music, etc. But the reason I single out the above axes of factors is that one needs to figure out which to spend the time trying.

Given the above, did I miss any major axis?