Nice review!
"Harder than it should be," Lon, INDEED!!
I could not convince a single person at work that this old "Deafened" hard rock dawg uses about four or five watts (via twin Zens) on his best system at home, until I brought my amps to work and set them up in the showroom before opening time one day. I powered all the "best speakers" we offer to fairly respectable levels (more than enough power for all but the hybrid electrostatics from Martin Logan), considering they mostly average in the 87dB range for efficiency.
We have some stupidly priced speakers for sale in our BB store, but the best sounding speakers in the house are the Klipsch Energy series, honestly. After listening to the Energy speakers with my twin Zens, all the fancy schmancy "beautiful furniture" speakers sound like they have a cold or at least a worsening sinus infection along with some possible pulmonary issues, as yet undiagnosed.
If you do not need to experience over 100dB today, I will put my little treasures up against five or seven hundred watt receivers we sell (costing three or four times as much) for sheer clarity and weight. TRUE!