Hello Peter,
If you can, if possible .... Try to get your hands on any old pair of Cabasse Sampan. If you have a large house, perhaps the brigantin series (big units)
Cabasse is high efficiency. I use a pair of Sampan of .. 1969 together with an older Cabasse small amplifier which delivers 2x10W tops. Cabasse is quite spectacular but most people find the lack of bass, which just sounds so because the lower freq. are quite precise. If the recording is shit, they sound shit. If the recording is top of the bill, you'll notice it immediately.
I use a very fast subwoofer together with the sampan, and that's enough to make my apartment move. I don't have loudness, nor tonal controls. And yes I play mainly classic or acoustical recordings, and my own acoustical recordings. The setup is very rich and dynamic. Man can go quite insane loud but I never do that. The sweetness of the sound is mainly in the Cabasse amplifier which is a mix of germanium and silicium transistors. Note that I have spend many hours in restoring the little amplifier. If I connect very high quality amplifiers, with more than enough power, the sound becomes more modern. But for classical pieces the combination of Cabasse amplifier and Cabasse speakers are more than superb. I think I have initially spend about 700 euros to buy the speakers and amplifier. (amplifier is very rare). So basically you want high efficiency speakers. You can go klipsch, but you don't want a horn in your small room. Amplifier power is not of that importance. No modern speaker sound like Cabasse on classical music at normal levels. Perhaps you should have a listen somewhere someday with someone who owns a pair of Cabasse speakers to get an idea. The Sampan is 3-way with 30cm low unit. However, the Dinghy 222 sounds almost the same and is a 2-way system with 25cm low unit. Add a small and very fast (read: expensive) subwoofer and that will blow you away too. Levels of over 120dB are no exception in classical pieces. Cabasse got famous as they can handle very loud piano strikes effortless, something that any modern speaker still has issues with (leaving the very expensive systems out as we are talking of, now, 2-300 euros for the dinghy's)
This is a suggestion to go out and try to listen to Cabasse. Take your best known classical pieces with you,orchestral and piano pieces, and go have a listen.
Watch for transients, dynamics and especially detail. Especially a violin ... it goes right into your soul. After all the Cabasse family were violin builders when they started making loudspeaker
systems. One very famous french company.
If Cabasse brings you on your knees, you will be forever in love with that 'only Cabasse can do that' sound.
Cheers !
