Best high-efficiency speaker under 10K

07-14-10: Ggavetti
Tvad, you put way more weight to half-hour listening sessions in a hotel room than I do.

I give hearing speakers significantly more weight than anyone's written opinion when making a purchase decision, regardless of the potential shortcomings of a hotel room audition.

I also do not recommend making a purchase decision after only a half an hour in a listening room.

07-14-10: Ggavetti
In my experience, listening to a speaker in a hotel room with equipment that is very different from yours is not very informative.

In my experience it far more informative than discussion group comments or reviews.

Having been down the road several times, and having purchased speakers based on hours and hours of reading comments, reviews and taking personal recommendations, I have learned that hearing speakers for myself is worth tenfold of what others say.

In fact, of any element of a stereo system, I believe speakers are the easiest to gauge in a relatively short amount of time in an audio show setting.

Hey, if you choose not to attend a show and hear speakers for yourself, than that's your prerogative.

Zu Essence blows goat. Cheap Ribbon, poor integration.

Devore is great but a little warm and not as transparent for my taste. BUT I have a good friend that builds $15k plus guitars and he loves Devore speakers.

As Tvad said, you need to listen for yourself.

Also consider Coincident Speaker Technology in Canada. If you trust reviews, Stereo Mojo loved the Super Victory. They are $9500, so maybe too pricey for you.

http://www.stereomojo.com/CoincidentSuperVictorySpeakerReview/CoincidentSuperVictorySpeakerReview.htm

I have an older model, the Super Eclipse IIs.

Regards,

Tvad, don't get me wrong. I do listen to a lot of speakers, and local dealers know me well (and I am lucky enough to live in boston, which has pretty good dealers). all i am saying is that system integration is key, and room layout even more. it happened to me more than once to pick up a speaker i loved at a local dealer and then return it because it did not sound right in my setup. that's why listening to others' opinion is an important aspect of this hobby...and one i enjoy too. then of course you have to be intelligent enough to interpret what other people say. the purpose of this post, for me, is to know what speakers made other people happy, why, and in what system. if you think there is little information in all this, that is fine. i respect your opinion. but newbee for instance suggested that i consider a speaker that i did not consider prior to this post. it's possible that i'll have a chance to give it a listen somewhere, and that i'll like it enough to try it out in my system. to me this is useful feedback. that's all.

i think you should use the search function---this subject has been discussed ad nauseum on the forum this year.