flabbergasted with reviews on speakers

Sounds more like you’re let down by YouTube vids.

Well yeah.

Answer:  Because efficiency ratings have no standard.

My speakers have never had a published efficiency rating.

But Larry would’ve taken them back if they didn’t work with my 55 watt amp at the time.

Sensitivity ratings for speakers is a commonly used spec. It is useful for matching an amp to a particular speaker. No chicanery here! The lower the sensitivity the more peak power needed. 

Are speaker sensitivity real...   

They are real but not the whole answer. Impedance and phase angle are also important. 

Speaker sensitivity is real. My Moabs are so sensitive if someone even hints they aren't the best speaker ever they go into a deep inconsolable sulk for the rest of the day. 

MOABs from what I hear, have electrolytic capacitors in the crossover. 

A complete travesty if you ask me. 

Again with the Tekton bs...stop it

Not to confuse matters, sensitivity may be measured using dB (1W/1M), dB(2.83V/1M) (and for the really lazy, just dB, move right along if you see that).

They are different. I understand that there is about a 3 dB difference between the watt and the volt measurements, all other things being equal. Watt higher? Happy to be corrected by an EE - ohms also come into play.

Read and weep right through if ya dare.

Speaker sensitivity is real. I used to build single driver speaker cabinets (transmission line, front loaded horns, Voight towers - my favorite) and pair them with Fostex drivers. You can get ridiculous volume levels with amazing clarity pairing these with flea watt amps. We even used D class chip amps. So speaker sensitivity is real. More wattage was required when drivers and speaker cabinets become inefficient due to designs driven by marketing wanting cool looking speakers. Lazy engineering required more power. 

MOABs from what I hear, have electrolytic capacitors in the crossover.

A complete travesty if you ask me.

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What do they have MC? You swapped yours out. Did they have electrolytics in the XO?

If they did, so did 90,000.00 Infinity IRS Vs or Beta, or Gammas. Yea they ALL sounded horrible for over 40 years..

What is wrong with electrolytics? Your gear is full of them? So is your house for that matter. Go look at your fancy thermostat or your remote control.

Filter CAPS? I guess I missed something.

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Lazy engineering required more power. 

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It's usually not the engineer, it's usually the accounting department. Bean counters have destroyed more great products and their reputations than any other thing on earth. It's true "The Love of money is the root to all evil". Money's fine, counting it too often, leads to some costly mistakes.

Bean counters that can't count. The US Congress.

Merry Christmas

Regards

@slick2 , It sounds like you got up on the wrong side of bed this morning. More so than any market I know of the audio market is consumer beware. 

You have to learn what you like and why. Experience will lead you to the best speaker for you not some reviewer.  Very few dealers have dedicated rooms for their systems where you can get a reasonable idea what the speaker is capable of.  I don't even read them. At some point you just have to jump in. 

Looking at my own experience, it took me 20 years and 6 different pair of speakers to figure out what I liked. Then another 20 years perfecting that approach. This is what the hobby is about. If you don't want to be bothered with it just get one of those package systems from Best Buy.

IME, it's true both that speaker sensitivity  matters, and that manufacturers sometimes (frequently?) misleadingly exaggerate it. If you can't try a prospective speaker with your amp, at least gather as much testimony as you can as to whether amps similar to yours can drive it.

As for the other sense of sensitivity, I quite like my speakers, and only say nice things about them.  This approach has "dramatic" positive effect on their performance!

“ Speaker sensitivity is real. My Moabs are so sensitive if someone even hints they aren't the best speaker ever I go into a deep inconsolable sulk for the rest of the day. “

FTFY

I don't own focal speakers but I do appreciate that in their website the tell the consumer what size room each model in a line the speaker is designed for. Sensitivity ratings alone aren't enough because like russ69 said impedance will affect the way an amp controls the output and possibly color the sound. 

In a top notch system, most, if not all the electrolytics caps are not directly in the signal path. Speaker crossover capacitors are, and get the full brunt of amplification. What is actually audible is a variable that’s difficult to quantify, but it’s better if they were good audio grade poly caps instead of the electrolytics, and it’s a fairly simple thing to upgrade....at the very least, bypass them with a small value poly cap.

It’s a similar logic to better wire, better connectors, etc. At some point, just about everything makes some difference.

Regarding the importance of sensitivity...I suppose it depends on how loud you want to listen, and the size of the room. I’m using primarily about 17 watts triode tube power into 89db speakers in a fairly good size carpeted room. I have the option of exceeding 30 watts in Ultralinear mode, but rarely ever the feel the need for more power....it seems to get plenty loud enough to annoy the family. There is an active subwoofer in the system to help fill out the bottom octave,so I’m sure that makes some difference, but overall sensitivity has been a non-issue for me....like anything else, I guess it depends....the transparency gained by better caps and wire means far more to me than a little extra volume level.

I LOVE my Speaker's L-Pads!!! Now use a sound meter and frequency bands to adjust them, IN THE SPACE, 

This kind of cuts to the topic of speaker size, room size equation.

@jerryg123, Great information!

Speaker sensitivity is a very real thing. When my big, rectangular, lumbering monolithic speakers overhear my wife speaking ill of them, they shut down &sound compressed for days. At 200 lbs each they highly impede any force coming at them with most angles unphased.

You're reading sources are flawed--so change them.  And i'm with Mike--learn what you like and why.

Your--why does siri change to you're ?

As a manufacturer or audio components (we don't offer speakers for sale), we get to hear and pair speakers with our equipment.  We also have to adjust to the speaker as you cannot just get the best sound out of a speaker just because the equipment is reference quality.  While high efficient speakers don't require that much power, paring the right amp surely makes a big difference.

Reviews are only part of the answer.  They should be sued for someone to get a flavor of what a speaker can sound like and to narrow down a choice or preference.  IMO you just cannot listen to a you tube video and pick out a speaker that will work in your system.

We have a listening room in Northern New Jersey which we are now using to help people understand how a speaker will perform with various amplifiers, etc.

Happy Listening.  

Most every speaker I have bought based on a review has been pretty darn good. I use reviews to base my decisions on, as unfortunately most if not all hifi stores in my area have closed their doors long ago...Spearit Sound, Tech HiFi, Audio Concepts...etc...back then, I actually auditioned speakers, and components for that matter. I miss the good old days...and not just relating to HiFi...

@wyoboy ...because Siri and Alexa are the Beast Goddess of the Electric Leash.
They seek to suck your mind into total surrender into your Cell, depend on it for everything you've forgotten...

...but it's funny to make them try to converse with each other....

"Bots' that's just the fun stuff....

....now, This might get your attention....

Send the guy a buck for the warning....;)

'Bots' up wid dat? *snicker*

Just an FYI, Ohm Acoustics provides a chart on their website that lists the range of cubic footage for which each of their speaker models is appropriate.  I am unaware of any other manufacturers who do this.

@asvjerry thanks for the snickers---although i'm also terrified!  Good thing i'm old enough to forget about it.

@wyoboy , stuff like that resonates in my imagination for awhile.  Automated room eq is what some of us delight in, but having Alexa get a handle on it is a concern.  'She' might compute that I ought to listen to dead people as well, just to maintain a certain credibility...😖

"Thanks, 'lexa....Did you check to ensure my family is in that mix?  I'd bet they all have something to say to me about me at this point..." 

I LOVE my Speaker's L-Pads!!! Now use a sound meter and frequency bands to adjust them, IN THE SPACE, 

I love my DEQX preamp/ DSP. Frequency response, speaker correction, room correction, three way digital crossover and more can be well regulated.

$$$ is what reviews are about.

no bad words will be said about paying advertisements, especially those which have a reputation of being Godlike.

 Many of these PAID reviewers do just that, take the money for an absolute great review of speakers, amps, preamps, ,…..

oh wait, those 700$ cedar cable lifters give me more defined bass, less hard etched treble, the midrange gave me the “being their” sensation, the woodwind was if I could hear the preemptive breath of the player, and I could hear the fingers grabbing the fret, then it all,came into focus, as the bow lightly struck the strings with the subtle touch of a hummingbird on my cheek. It was something I’ve never felt before with my Klipsch,cornerhorns, yet these 90K MBL gives me the sensation of the pianist begging me for a dollar at a cigar smoke filled pub in soho. It was miraculous to say the least. 
  I’m sold, these speakers are some of the very best I’ve listened too, with my 4,800$ cables, cable bridges, the fluorescent green bees wax and mercury fuses really brought the speakers to life. 
 

Reviewers should reveal their room size and any treatments. Unless it is ficus trees.

Then all bets are off.

Neither cheese nor chalk.

@arcticdeth - Merry Christmas! So you're saying the reviewers who say they are not being paid are lying, and will recommend crap if they're paid for it? Seems like that would be a great way to lose subscribers and your reputation and not have prospective buyers pay any attention to anything you say anymore. Or maybe there will be enough new viewers who haven't caught on yet? I dunno... 

@larsman Merry Christmas and yes payola is going on in the review world. 

@jerryg123 - Merry Christmas to you, too!! 

Nope, not calling it a lie, it’s just a bloated bit of horse apples, like most reviewers.

they will up their selected words for a review. For the companies in their rag, and financial supporters.

if you wanna call it a lie, then so be it. They do elevate most reviews to make the reviewed products seem better. This has always been the way of the reviewers (most).

 They will not bad mouth paid advertisers, or they will lose those huge checks, and these select reviewers, know how to butter up companies. 
rarely have I read a review which dumped on the product  

Electrolytic capacitors are not "bad" in and of themselves. It’s just that over time, *some* of them, especially in a hot environment, will begin to dry out and change value. How long? Usually, 5 to 10 years or MORE. If you are willing to rebuild your crossover every 10 to 15 years, (or at least use a meter to check values), then they should be no problem.

As far as the YouTuber speaker reviews go, I think most of them try to be honest in their assessment of a speaker’s sound. And after watching enough of their reviews you can begin to figure out what kind of speaker THEY find appealing.

That might be very different from what YOU find appealing, but you can sort of read between the lines or "triangulate" and "extrapolate" what they are saying.

For instance Christy on Andrew Robinson’s channel and the old Audiophiliac Steve Gutenberg both prefer "lively" even "bright" speakers...i.e. Klipsch and Focal and some models of B&W.

At least I know that when I hear their reviews.

But yes, the trend these days toward reviewers mainly concentrating on smallish bookshelf speakers isn’t helping me find out what I want for the living room.

Having owned some old AR-9 speakers that I adored; I can’t see being content with "small" sound. Where are the reviews of floor standers and towers in the $1000 to $3500 range each? That is within the realm of my amount of interest.

Then you have the issue of reviewers never telling you how speakers sound at various volume levels. For some people, speakers need to sound good at lower volumes as much as when rocking out.

Some reviewers also won’t do negative reviews. Like Steve G, he’d rather NOT review a product than put out one trashing a speaker. In the $1000 speaker category this year most were fawning all over the KLH Model 5, but Steve decided to not do a review on them saying he just didn’t hear what all the other reviewers heard. YMMV, etc.

I guess at the end of the day, watching YouTube reviews of speakers is like watching people in a restaurant trying to tell you how a food tastes. Better than not watching one at all, but definitely not like trying said food for yourself.

Are speaker sensitivity real or is it to sell more expensive amps.

It depends on the integrity of the speaker company. See the reviews below.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/tekton-design-impact-monitor-loudspeaker-measurements

https://www.stereophile.com/content/tekton-design-enzo-xl-loudspeaker-measurements