How important is the efficiency of a speaker to you?

I just posted this elsewhere

I advise working very hard to find efficient speakers you love, they are out there. Don't even listen to inefficient ones.

That will keep the needed power down: less: cost/size/weight/heat and it will increase placement options of amps, especially integrated with a need to receive signal from a remote.

Importantly, low power needs allows a much easier way to try tubes.

More competition exists at lower power needs, thus more competitive prices, and more used choices.

Sorry you were belittled, but I think every manufacturer has to find their niche. 

I think that the truth of modern speaker building, especially 2-way systems is that they often give up efficiency for bass output, so I don't really think we can make the case that most speakers should be able to be driven by modest amps.  However, there's a big gap in "normal" 2 way speaker efficiency and say something like the Kef Ref 1 Meta (or whatever it's called) which is technically a 3-way with just amazingly bad impedance curves.

Your average 2-way is not that bad and a modest (50 wpc) tube amp will do well with it.

If you want a 2-way with excellent bass and very tube friendly look at Fritz.  Really excellent.

Dig deep? My Arion Audio S500 amp was priced at $2500 when I got it a few years ago. It packs 500 watts per channel and sound great. My inefficient speakers soak up those watts and sound wonderful to my ears.

I think amps sound better in their their optimum power range instead of a very powerful amp barely putting out even a small fraction of its power...learned that decades ago from guitar amps. I like an efficient speaker with an amp that's digging in a little, like my Heresy IIIs and one of two amps I use with them: A Dennis Had Firebottle SEP or a Pass XA-25. Works for me. It seems that a very high percentage of speakers are in the 89 or less DB range requiring at least my Had amp to stay away except at low levels. A shame. Give me some clear horns over any "conventional drivers in a box," except for nearfield recording monitors.

Planars just sound more realistic to my ears. If they need power, so be it.

Class D has come a long way and I have been more than happy with SQ of the Nord Purifi. Many other reviewers and actual users have also been impressed with most of the new Gan and Class D amps. 

@ghdprentice  I too have moved on from the MLs, now in my 2nd system, and have replaced them with Sonus Fabers. However I have them in biamp mode and am still using the Class D for the bass and a tube amp for the mids and highs.

The most important thing to me is the sound quality of the speakers. They set the stage for what you are going to hear. That is it, no consideration of efficiency. Then I find the proper amplification to support them.
 

After a love affair with electrostatic and ribbon speakers for decades… which I supported with 150+ pound, massive high powered amps. I realized I really wanted natural / musical sounding system. So I found Sonus Faber speakers, which are mostly 90db efficient and them I found the best sounding amp to support them… so the wpc went from 350 to 70.

Class D amps are certainly a lower priced option, but most folks still are not that impressed with the SQ. 
 

Most folks not impressed?   Say what?

Very high efficiency means one can swim in the calm, warm 300B waters, which I love.  Low efficiency means one can swim and surf with the wide variety SS offer, which I also love.  Why choose when you can have both?

@mazian   Class D amps are certainly a lower priced option, but most folks still are not that impressed with the SQ. 

@quincy  There is another factor, a high powered good sounding ss amp, particularly one that can push current into very low impedances, is also going to cost a lot more ( on average) than a good sounding medium ( maybe even high powered) powered tube amp.

@kennyc  Well if you think that, there is no further need for you to post on this thread.

It all depends how you want your personal system to sound to you.

Each of us has their own specific criteria and system.

Took me 25 years to appreciate 4 ohm, 92 dB sensitivity speakers with an all vacuum tube preamp and vacuum tube amp (70 watts output).  If you want/like 8 ohm 86 dB sensitivity speakers you will most likely have to go with a high watt output solid state amp (>150 watts).  Which is fine!  I've had both type of systems but prefer the vacuum tube amps and efficient speakers.... The main problem is it takes so long and so much money to finally figure out what you really like.

Gan and Purifi based Class D amps will drive any inefficient speakers and the cost is not excessive. I used a Purifi Class D rated at 300wpc to drive ML Vantage speakers which go as low as 1 ohm at times.

@daveyf 

this seems like simply a venting thread as nothing is going to change- inefficient speakers require more power than efficient speakers. 

Jond,

I too generally prefer low-powered tube amps.  That makes high efficiency and easy load important qualities of a speaker.  AN-J’s are not very high in efficiency, but they are intended to be placed in the corner of a room, which boosts the level of bass and makes them effectively more efficient, and they present an easy load to the amplifier.  I heard crazy-good sound from AN-J SECs driven by a Kageki amp (parallel 2a3 SET amp); an incredibly good match even though the Kageki is something like a 6.5 wpc amp.

-j-

I like tube amps and generally don't like high powered tube amps so I look for sensitivity in speakers my current AN-J's are 93db and work well on 3.5 2a3 watts. 😉

I am currently using that same 2.3 wpc amp with my 96dB 140 lb floorstanders.  I feed the amp with a Grimm MU1 streamer and a Lampizator Golden Gate 3 DAC.  Interestingly, my DAC uses large DHT tubes capable of making twice the power of the amp (although they don't, the DAC output is line level with volume control).

Jerry

When discussing speakers that are hard to drive, I'm not really talking about speakers that cannot be driven by just a few watts. The video above, with the Decware amp is interesting, because while this amp probably sounds good within its envelope, at just 2.3 watts/ch, it clearly is extremely limited as to what speakers it will work with. This is basically the other end of the scale, the speakers in my OP need a minimum of 100 watts/ch and an amp that can push current into a very low load. The opposite is the case with a tube amp that puts out flea power...this amp can only be matched with a very small number of speakers. ( Relatively). 

So, while I would agree that the cost to put together a system with a flea watt amp is probably less than one that needs a brute of a ss amp upstream, neither is great IMO. 

I'm happy with my bi-amped system which combines an efficient dipole line array (98db/w) driven by a DHT SET, and a dipole servo woofer tower handling the lower few octaves and driven by an 800w class D amp. This is the best of both worlds for me. Fast, tight, powerful bass and gorgeous, spacious mids and highs. 

Usually low efficiency means complex crossovers. The issues of cross interference, phase coherence and latency resulting from multiple transducers compaerd to a two way, ideally point source in my mind are too complex to solve. That’s why flea amps with high efficiency speakers have such a strong following among true audiophiles

I use high efficiency speakers with high power. Amps have come a long way and high power does not mean bad/noisy anymore.

there is something about dynamics of high efficiency speaker but a lot of things are at play here too. Dispersion of the speaker and load (ohms) also come into play.

I'll admit I'm old and my ability to hear high frequencies has diminished but from the listening position high efficient speakers when driven by a well grounded and well designed amp solid state or tube are dead silent. By pressing your ear against the front of the speaker it is possible that a faint hiss may or not  be heard that's not really an issue as I don't listen that way. 

Flea watt amps are anything but dumb. Low watt amps and high efficiency speakers are about transient speed.

A little off subject, but still might pertain. I drive big ss monos and noticed when the speakers were pretty close they seemed to start to cancel each other out. Maybe think spacing and sort of a sound hall, like the opposite of a bass trap. Can’t remember but bose may hsve had engineering that semi included something similar, not positve. Hard to remeber 25 years ago. Lol you might also be able to compromise and look for a/b systems.

I benefit from speakers being quiet when on standby so I'd stay away from very efficient ones. Need to be between middle and low for that matter. Impedance stability is somewhat more important than efficiency especially If I want to use tube amp. For me performance matters and if I can figure out how to make it sound best, it means the speaker gets my attention for what it's worth. Ima garage sale junkie rat sneaking for lonely grammas to sell audio for cheap so spending not much either. If I note GOOD DEAL from any of the situations I'm trying to take advantage from, I wouldn't really care about neither efficiency nor impedance stability.

Maybe some horns and colored cables might help. 

The very good high efficiency speakers also require a serious amp, they can still be difficult loads. Flea watt amps are dumb for any kind of speaker, high efficiency or not. Nothing about the flea watt amp guarantees that it is the best design for the first watt or fractions of it. In fact, a lot of them are garbage.