volume/transparency ?

Audiokinesis, nice post. But re differing driver efficiencies and compression limits: why are these related?
The higher sensitivity driver (almost always the tweeter) is padded anyway, so compression issues would be unrelated to efficiencies, no? Not relevant here anyway, but just a thought. I would think that speakers that have a "right" volume only are (accidentally?)designed to produce an inroom response that flattens out VIS-A-VIS our fletcher-munsoned ears. It's an interesting point. In addition to symmetrical "droops" with lowered SPLs, I wonder if the best designers also have to factor in off-axis flare smmothness AT DIFFERENT SPLs to get a speaker that sounds balanced in a wide range of volumes? Interesting....

I'd like to take this opportunity to say again that I think listening volumes are the underappreciated X-Factor in audio. If I prefer to listen mostly at lower volumes, this will be a very significant factor in how I build my system and how I evaluate components, particularly (but not only) speakers. My impression is that most people--certainly most reviewers-- listen a lot at live or near-live music levels. Their findings are not 100% useful for me, I think.

I lived with Quad 57's for many years and they were absolute champs at delivering the goods at low volume.

Drubin, those old Quads were good at ALL levels they could take, IMO :)!

Steakster, what volume levels are we talking about? Do you have access to a SPL meter? Also what is the size of your listening room and how far are you sitting from your speakers? Measured decibel levels at the speaker and at the listening position will give insight into whether it's a loudness curve issue or not, plus you should measure the background noise level of your listening room. It may be that the at soft listening levels you are knocking at the room's noise floor.

Good one, 61.