Efficient speaker: Zu, Tekton, Volti, Klipsch, Fleetwood?


We’re moving and I’m looking for a high-efficiency, high impedance speaker that can fill a very large “great room” with smooth, open, detailed sound, both for serious listening and casual background music. I currently have Devore Super 9s, but those will be going in a separate dedicated listening room. I thought about getting another pair of Devores (maybe the O/93) for the great room because I love this brand, but I’m interested in other possibilities The new speakers will be on either side of a 6-foot TV console, so they’ll need to sound good fairly close to the wall behind them. And they will need to have a reasonably good WAF. They will be played mainly at low-moderate sound levels and our tastes include rock, classical, world music and “spa” type relaxation stuff.

Anyone who is familiar with any of the following candidates, please feel free to sound off. As you can see, price ranges are all over the place:

Zu Soul Supreme

Tekton Lore

Volti Razz

Klipsch Forte IV

Fleetwood Deville

Others?

128x128ladok

I recently heard some O/96s at my dealer and compared to my La Scala AL5s the Devores were a little more forward through the high mids/low treble.  There were other differences of course but that was the big takeaway for me. Different systems/rooms  but I think I could be happy with either.

No mention of Daedalus Audio I think. I have had my Darama large standmounts for over 10 years and no plan to change.All the range is in the mid 90s sensitivity, with a benign load too.

 

As for WAF, Lou is a Carpenter by trade I believe and makes beautiful solid wood cabinets. Mine cost $5500 in 2010, much more now I'm sure, inflation in HiFi is ridiculous in my view. No Dealers I believe, but Lou has a number of owners happy to Demo, across the States and outside too. I recommend an audition.

Not for Tekton bashing as I believe they make a pretty good inexpensive speaker.  I owned a pair of the Perfect-SET speakers.  They may have not been quite as efficient as advertised, however they were efficient and sounded pretty darn good over-all.  $-for-$, they are tough to beat.  I sold them as there was an obvious dip in the upper mid-range frequencies, which in comparison to my Living-Voice OBX-RW's was brought out however those speakers were $12K+ when new 11 years ago.  All in all, if I hadn't had the L-V speakers, I may have not noticed the mid-range dip in the Perfect-SET Tektons.  They had great bass and were noticeably more-efficient than my L-V's...  Great speakers for rock & roll ! 

By the way, I also had several pairs of ZU speakers and none of them I believe were rated very accurately in terms of actual efficiency, especially the Soul-Superfly version I had.  Was actually tougher to drive than the Druids...  

John

Jim Salk is renowned for his cabinetry, but there are not that many speakers in his line that are all that sensitive. Still, a few are 90-92db, and they are beautiful.

FYI, Salk has home trial. Daedalus, I think, does not.

Lines are limited but take a look:

92 db https://www.salksound.com/series.php?series=Exotica
90 db https://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=BePure%202

I have been corresponding with him in the hopes he might develop some higher sensitivity speakers. His concern is with distortion. I personally would wish he'd make a speaker that rolls off a bit higher -- 45-50 hz -- that is easy to drive and could be paired with an active sub.

 JBL K2 9900 are what you want.

 93 dB efficiency, +/- 1 db from 70 - 20kHz, less than 1% distortion at 96db across the audible sound spectrum and 500 watt power handling.