Low-sensitivity speakers — What's special about them?
I'm building a system for a smaller room (need smaller bookshelves), and I did a bunch of research and some listening. I am attracted both to the Dynaudio Evoke 10's (heard locally) and the Salk Wow1 speakers (ordered and I'm waiting on them for a trial). I have a Rel 328 sub.
Here's the thing — both of those speakers are 84db sensitivity. Several people on this forum and my local dealer have remarked, "You should get a speaker that's easier to drive so you have a wider choice of power and can spend less, too."
That advice — get a more efficient speaker — makes sense to me, but before I just twist with every opinion I come across (I'm a newbie, so I'm pathetically suggestible), I'd like to hear the other side. Viz.,
QUESTION: What is the value in low sensitivity speakers? What do they do for your system or listening experience which make them worth the cost and effort to drive them? Has anyone run the gamut from high to low and wound up with low for a reason?
Your answers to this can help me decide if I should divorce my earlier predilections to low-sensitivity speakers (in other words, throw the Salks and Dyns overboard) and move to a more reasonable partner for a larger variety of amps. Thanks.
Sounds like you need a sub. That is not a very big room. In a room i have that is similar size, my Sonus Faber Concerto play at pretty decent levels clearly with a 40 watt amp . They have decent bass as low as they go down but they need a sub to really have a decent low end. Those are rated at 86 dB and reviews put them more at 85 and forty watts is plenty.
Not familiar with your speaker but i would double check all wiring to make sure the polarity is correct. A speaker of phase can give weak bass
I doubt it is your gear , that is seriously good stuff. I would reset the Mac preamp's processor and start from scratch.
I just got a pair of T-3.2 SP. I am pairing them with Mcintoch MC402 400 watt/channel and C2200 preamp. I noticed that I need to crank the volume to a certain level for all the bass coming out.
My listening room is small (12 feet x 15 ft). I usually listen at low volume. I wonder what amp and how many watt I should pair with them in order to have all (or most of) the bass even at low volume.
Also, do these speakers need to have monoblock or even biamp or it's just a "good to have" feature?
I found very little discussion about Classic Audio in other forums when googling so any help here is greatly appreciated!
I prefer low sensitivity speakers. Mine are listed at 91,
@arcticdeth 91dB isn't low sensitivity. Its more of a medium sensitivity.
To put this in perspective, the low eighties is near-criminal inefficiency (its very hard to find an amp that sounds like music and has the sort of power needed unless you are nearfield). This would make them nearly impossible in a larger room.
About 89dB is the bottom of what might be considered 'medium sensitivity. 94-96dB is about the top of that range.
97dB might be considered the very bottom of what is considered 'high sensitivity'.
They seem very warm to me, which is what I love. Never any ear splitting/searing/molar grinding treble at all!
The quality of 'ear splitting/searing has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with distortion caused by either the amp or breakups in the speaker. So this can happen even if the speaker is only 85dB (and often does). People often blame the speaker because that is what is making the sound, but often the electronics carry a lot of the blame.
I prefer low sensitivity speakers. Mine are listed at 91, which may seem high, in my room they are not bright at all. The listed 91 must be different in the chamber, as the crossover/tweeter the highs are rolled off at 600 hk/kHz, whatever! They seem very warm to me, which is what I love. Never any ear splitting/searing/molar grinding treble at all!
Will try to make my speakers last forever!!
gave my BIC venturi dv84 to my cousin, as the treble, while super perfect and accurate, just hit a nerve , and made me feel anxious, and get up to dial down the volume. The Altec Lansing M-508’s were great, but didn’t have the beef on the bass dept.
anyway, I now look for low sensitivity speakers, or ones that are labeled as “warm”
I'm aware manufacturers usually cater to the majority of buyers,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Popular vote always wins, But may not necessarily be the vote for the higher fidelity speaker.
If you read through Agon's speaker posts, rarely if ever db sensitivity comes up.
I just recently made the db sesnitivity discovery late 2020. After makinga trial experiement with one of these ~~odd/unusual/off the beaten path** strange Wide band/full range. I1st initial recation,, wow, these things may have some potential for the midrange I;'m looking for my classical music. Order a bunch more others, til I finally 1 year later hit on the one I liked,,
High sensitivity was like a revelation. I recall folks back in the 2004 era, suggesting wide bands/full range/point source, require a SET amp. Or lets say ideally. Which may be partly true. This suggestion prevented me from seeking further into these designs.
Perhaps some of Voxativ and AER's super high sensitivity speakers almost demand SET's. 94-100db
The 2 WBers I know are well design , have 92db sensitivity and so most PP amps will work out fine. At say 96db sensitivity WBer,, there is a issue attempting to power with either of my PP amps.
This efficiency issue is one "spec" out of many that a designer must balance. All these performance parameters are evidence of the enormous number of trade offs in creating a complete driver/box/electronics design. So designers make their own choice ("I want a horn, that’s what I like") and balance everything to favor their choice ( it will have limited dispersion, HF narrowing, but that’s okay I’ll try and minimize it, etc). This is the way speaker design is, balancing hundreds of issues that represent hundreds of choices and all of them have resulting tradeoffs. You may want a low distortion driver but its too expensive, or the OEM manufacturer can’t build it till next year and you’ll be out of business by then. Or, the horn you want to use wont fit the box you already bought or built, or you don’t care about efficiency as amps are cheap so you want the widest bandwidth possible, ..on and on.
Here's a different perspective: don't mind the reasoning behind and outcome from a manufacturer who's business model is sought kept afloat, but simply choose with an open mind - without blindly converging with consensus - what you as a user/buyer prefer. I'm aware manufacturers usually cater to the majority of buyers, hence why smaller and inefficient speakers became popular in the first place, but small(er) size and inefficiency is something that dictates a whole darn lot design-wise, just like the ripples created from a high efficiency design has implications that go far beyond efficiency alone. It's two quite different segments of speakers in many regards, as you know, and it's why efficiency isn't just efficiency - or "one spec," as you so put it. And the thing about not caring about efficiency isn't something that can be freely compensated for by simply adding power; wattage is wattage, and "innovation" in heat dissipation is only so prevalent that it's a major issue still, and likely always will be.
There is a practical science at play here, with product development controlled by economics, engineering principles, sales, marketing and a whole bunch of other factors we’ll never know about at the factory that drive those choices. In the end, the company "sells what they have" as ALL speakers are a sum of trade offs. Many of the issues debated are really arguments over someone’s clever marketing points and we as consumers take these marketing issues as gospel, as facts. Since everything is choices, it may be these performance features are important only in THIS type of design. To another design, they don’t matter. Like wide dispersion is not desirable when you are trying to throw sound over a long distance (think football stadium). But to home audio, and wide dispersion means I get to sit on both ends of the couch and hear it properly, that matters a whole lot to me.
Just to narrow this down to dispersion, I mainly think of (and hear) the dispersion characteristics of many horns as something that limits the influence of the acoustics at play, and not (necessarily) a head-in-a-vice outcome or what's otherwise sonically unwanted in a home environment. My actively configured main EV speakers are intended to fill up to large cinema auditoriums with loud movie sound, but they work wonders in a moderately sized living room, at any SPL, and that at a listening distance of 11-12 feet. I WAS afraid their large midrange/HF horn wouldn't gel with the twin 15" woofers below it, but as a 2-way design (in addition to subs) that's not a problem. Go figure. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is the only viable way to enjoy music (and movies) in your home, but that contrary to what many believe here it's actually an extremely capable option, not least actively configured, and one not overly expensive at that. Dynamics, ease, scale, resolution, presence, coherency - audiophile speakers struggle here by comparison.
The company I work with makes perhaps the best cone and dome drivers on the planet but their speaker cabinets are plain rectangular boxes. Some say the box is everything but in this design 2 of the 3 drivers have their own chamber and the box is not involved in the driver at all. The baffle is more or less "a holder" for position and improves output as there is acoustic gain by sealing drivers to a surface. Some say the box looks old fashioned- so to balance that we use some exotic woods and make them look like beautiful furniture. The best you can do is find a way to make some happy and others will just not see it/hear it the way you do.
What I love about ATC speakers (my assumption of what you're referring to above) is their consistent, some may even say conservative approach to making speakers, them being made for the pro market - which is not excluding the domestic ditto, and the lack of marketing BS. Rock solid drive units that stand the test of time; honest, coherent and rather authentic/natural sound, and active configuration (as a main trait of theirs). I couldn't care less about the look of the cabinets; they do what they're supposed to do - no more, no less.
... There IS more than one way to do it and many good sounding speakers out there. Each has its own application set that it excels at and other applications that it doesn’t do well with. We have not arrived at a universal solution.
Agreed, but speaking of diversity high efficiency is very often disregarded by audiophiles and the associated industry. The latter, figures. The former I'd say mostly buys into the sentiment of the latter, simply because it's gotten the norm, and not least because it's convenient one way and the other. There ARE many accepted ways in the range of low efficiency speakers, but for this to really be diverse high efficiency is definitely to be more readily accepted in audiophilia - or so I find.
Does your comment Sounds_Real_ Audio mean you think a passive crossover is different in a horn vs a direct radiator?
Different challenges, I'd say; complex passive cross-overs not least suck the life out of already relatively stale-sounding low eff. speakers, whereas passive XO's often do horns a disservice by having them work outside of their safer bandwidth range. Once again: active configuration to the rescue.
Oceanway is a relatively new player to studio monitors, Alan Sides always "built his own" when he owned Ocean Way. He was from the old school days of large format horn loaded 2 ways soffit mounted, a type of speaker most studio people call "bigs". Now's he's entered the consumer speaker building business and he has Phil Hendrickson, who is a really great guy BTW, talented as heck, working for him. Phil is a highly experienced transducer designer who's developed several new ideas like vented gap technology in EV's early "DL" woofers. I first met him at Electro Voice in the 80s. He later went to Bose, now working for Alan. I think Alan has something going and is getting some studio sales but is really targeting the international market for consumer. Oceanway has significant brand recognition.
@lonemountain If I was setting up a nearfield situation (like we use in my studio) I wouldn't use horns either; they're just too big- and how do you get the midrange and tweeter to blend? Nearfield I don't think I'd be very concerned about efficiency either.
This efficiency issue is one "spec" out of many that a designer must balance. All these performance parameters are evidence of the enormous number of trade offs in creating a complete driver/box/electronics design. So designers make their own choice ("I want a horn, that’s what I like") and balance everything to favor their choice ( it will have limited dispersion, HF narrowing, but that’s okay I’ll try and minimize it, etc). This is the way speaker design is, balancing hundreds of issues that represent hundreds of choices and all of them have resulting tradeoffs. You may want a low distortion driver but its too expensive, or the OEM manufacturer can’t build it till next year and you’ll be out of business by then. Or, the horn you want to use wont fit the box you already bought or built, or you don’t care about efficiency as amps are cheap so you want the widest bandwidth possible, ..on and on.
There is a practical science at play here, with product development controlled by economics, engineering principles, sales, marketing and a whole bunch of other factors we’ll never know about at the factory that drive those choices. In the end, the company "sells what they have" as ALL speakers are a sum of trade offs. Many of the issues debated are really arguments over someone’s clever marketing points and we as consumers take these marketing issues as gospel, as facts. Since everything is choices, it may be these performance features are important only in THIS type of design. To another design, they don’t matter. Like wide dispersion is not desirable when you are trying to throw sound over a long distance (think football stadium). But to home audio, and wide dispersion means I get to sit on both ends of the couch and hear it properly, that matters a whole lot to me.
The company I work with makes perhaps the best cone and dome drivers on the planet but their speaker cabinets are plain rectangular boxes. Some say the box is everything but in this design 2 of the 3 drivers have their own chamber and the box is not involved in the driver at all. The baffle is more or less "a holder" for position and improves output as there is acoustic gain by sealing drivers to a surface. Some say the box looks old fashioned- so to balance that we use some exotic woods and make them look like beautiful furniture. The best you can do is find a way to make some happy and others will just not see it/hear it the way you do.
These are trade offs made all the time by speaker builders and then we as purchasers and users get to choose if we agree and make the same choices. The funny part is how people, who aren’t acoustics scientists, want to insist their isn’t a choice, there is only one way to do it, and this is it! I know, I read the entire brochure! Or, I saw this demo once that showed XYZ and THAT was the truth let me tell you! "Their" speaker maker’s choices are the only right ones, they understood it and no one else does. A comment like this company is the only one "that really understands cabinets" is a very simple view of a very very complex business. Speaker engineering and building is HARD and because its physics, many of the choices are not flexible or open to interpretation. There is a large body of science behind all this that is available to everyone to draw on. I certainly don’t think the brand I work with has the only solution. There IS more than one way to do it and many good sounding speakers out there. Each has its own application set that it excels at and other applications that it doesn’t do well with. We have not arrived at a universal solution.
There are newer generations of horns that are much better no doubt. But well known to have lower distortion? That gem is not in my physics text book! Maybe I should qualify my comments to apply to normal SPLs in nearfield applications (home audio)? Maybe that's what you mean, that at higher SPL horns can measure better? Over long distances or high SPL I would think could be true, but I'm not sure. But nearfield? I very much doubt that horns beat direct radiators in the low distortion game. Certainly isn't my direct experience in my years in the audio business. One only needs look to what the best of the best speaker designers of the industry are using for their best nearfield designs- and only in very rare cases (the JBL M1 comes to mind) are horns used.
Does this mean there aren't horn based systems that sound good? I've heard some that were very impressive. But if you want Tom Petty's guitar to sound exactly like the real thing in the studio or at home, off axis and on axis, at listening SPLs we'd really use at home or the studio, Tom's engineer and Tom himself chose direct radiators. Most of the great records over the past 30 years used direct radiators for monitoring AND mastering.
Controlled directivity- In a nearfield setting, highly controlled directivity can be a negative for audio quality as off axis reflections are now significantly different from on axis speaker output. This is a big no-no for authentic reproduction. In real life a trumpet or a guitar don't create a limited dispersion sound. Reflections are a natural part of real life music and are needed for authentic imaging. So authentic imaging needs its off axis output to look very similar to the on axis output, only lower in SPL (level). Like a guitar playing in your living room, the guitar radiation pattern bounces energy off side walls that recombines with the direct sound at your ear. This is one big reason why some rooms sound different. .
A room with highly reflective surfaces (lets say glass sidewalls and tile floors to illustrate the point), doesn't sound good by nature. A wide dispersion speaker does not sound good there. These super reflective rooms can benefit by avoiding sending energy to these highly reflective walls. This is the time where a highly controlled dispersion loudspeaker (such as a horn) at home pays off. It could also be controlled by acoustic control, such as drapes or absorption on the sides and rugs on the floor. .
Thanks for linked article, @alexberger. In real-world scenarios with mostly passively configured, inefficient speakers - certainly approaching to some extent live acoustic (or amplified) levels - Thermal Distortion is an inescapable factor.
@lonemountain --
Focusing on efficiency as a measure of speaker technology or quality is like judging a passenger car based on miles per gallon.
That’s only assuming high efficiency has main priority regardless of other aspects and ultimately sonic outcome - a convenient position trying to make your own point, but hardly the bigger picture.
Low efficiency is a hindrance; never a trait, and as such has that to fight as well in addition to all other areas in speaker design. They’re the product initially of a desire and need for smaller size to cater to a commercial market, NOT because they were deemed better sounding (but of course marketing efforts made their best to sell the acoustic suspension principle as such).
High efficiency and large size as a foundation is giving acoustics their more proper due, but also moves the design, at least partially, into the realm of acoustic transformation. The most predominant enemy of horns it seems, except when they’re bad designs and too small, is passive cross-overs and too shallow slopes. Horns generally don’t like working outside of their "comfort zone" or design specifics here, something active configuration can more readily accommodate with steeper cut-offs compared to (the side effects of) complex passive filters.
So, a high efficiency design properly (and actively) configured is a win-win scenario from my chair, the only real drawback being - to whom it may concern - large size.
The problem is if you put more than 20 Watt to your speakers voice coil you will get huge TD. For me it is rule of thumb, if speakers can't be driven by 20 Watt amplifier their compression level cause me fatigue.
In home audio, they are not your friend when it comes to dispersion and low distortion.
This statement is false. Horns are well-known to have extremely low distortion if properly designed- the first paper I saw in this came from the 1950s when slide rules were how things are done. Nowadays people use computers to optimize the shape of the horn and get very good distortion figures as a result.
The second thing horns can do for you has to do with controlled directivity which they have and other speaker types do not. This allows you to minimize side wall reflections (which are interpreted by the ear as harshness due to their short delay times) if you so choose.
As a result you can get excellent imaging and depth with very low distortion easily rivaling the best ESLs.
There are decades of scientific research, testing and effort on this subject. Old ideas about horn loading have not been disproven or debunked; rather the audio community, led by science and research, now understands better where horns pay off and where they don’t. Live sound could not exist without horns. In home audio, they are your friend if all you have is a 20W tube amp and you want to recreate the experience of a live orchestra. In home audio, they are not your friend when it comes to dispersion and low distortion. Personal anecdotes do not overcome the extent of verified research done on the subject by audio’s superstars such as Raymond Cooke (KEF), Floyd Toole (JBL), Billy Woodman (ATC) and all the unknowns from companies that got us here, such as Advent, EV, James B Lansing’s brother Altec, on and on.......
Talk about old technology, I have a 1929 Stromberg Carlson radio with a 15 inch 2 way coax (discrete hand made coax, not an acoustic coax "whizzer cone") sitting on what I think might be the worlds first home use transmission line. It was the beginning of high end audio. Brad Lone Mountain
Focusing on efficiency as a measure of speaker technology or quality is like judging a passenger car based on miles per gallon. MPG does not measure or reflect the quality of seating, the quality of materials in the car, the car's performance, its reliability or safety. There have been many terrible high MPG cars that are uncomfortable, don't handle well, don't look good, are unreliable and unsafe.
Nothing “special” bout them. You may need a more powerful amp. Or depending what the speaker load is 4Ohm?
Mine are somewhat higher, BUT, the highs are rolled off, so they seem and ARE warmer sounding. Recording dependent is huge, a good recording is fine, a HOT recording will sound too bright, even on my speakers
especially the scorpions remasters several years ago, they are so bad, it’s like the sound guy, pushed up every lever of the treble, they are not even listenable,......which is why I use my old original pressings. I personally like warmer speakers, so, if you like the sound of them, keep, and enjoy the NON fatiguing sound. Enjoy.
Indeed - a very knowledgeable guy, well-spoken and always with a balanced and to-the-point approach.
.. A 'high sensitivity speaker' is really going to be more like 96dB at the lowest; there's something called 'medium sensitivity' which is about 90 to 96dB.
Was going to bring this up as well. I guess it's illuminative into the inertia of hi-fi speakers being by and large rather inefficient, and that anything that hits higher at 90dB's or slightly above this number is then deemed "high efficiency." It certainly is not.
@lonemountain --
The thermal compression you speak of is purely a function of the driver's ability to dissipate heat, not the amplifier, as all voice coils get hot when "powered up" by any size amplifier. Its the inability to cool the driver that causes thermal compression and reduces driver performance.
Definitely, and therefore it also goes to show that compensating for low efficiency by simply adding more wattage will, all things being equal, more easily meet the drivers saturation point in regards to thermal compression.
Thermal compression happens to high and low sensitivity speakers at all price points.
But at different SPL's, that's the whole point.
Listeners will wonder why their speakers "sound different" when played loud for periods of time, this is a voice coil heating up and reducing its dynamic range. Since its impossible to see this in action, its within the driver itself, we cannot assess this externally or by any spec.
Speakers like ATC, certainly the bigger models, use large diameter (though sometimes rather short) voice coils that will more effectively dissipate heat. Large voice coils (+3") generally are not not implemented in low(er) efficiency hi-fi speakers, and so thermally are more challenged. Moreover many ATC speakers - when best, to my ears - are actively configured, and this makes them impervious to the influence and effect of a passive cross-over at higher SPL's, while also having the amplifiers work seeing into an easier load - all of which contributes to a sound that is less "stressed" at higher levels.
A 86/87dB 1w/1m speaker referred to often as "low
sensitivity" is only 3dB away from a 90dB 1w/1m - referred to as a "high
sensitivity speaker".
Although most of the post from which I extracted this is good information, this statement really isn't right. A 'high sensitivity speaker' is really going to be more like 96dB at the lowest; there's something called 'medium sensitivity' which is about 90 to 96dB.
@lonemountain Thank you so much for your informative post. It's been a while since I started this thread, but your answer is probably the best one so far.
Especially important is your statement:
Low sensitivity is not a by product of reducing cost. A manufacturer could decide to build a cheap system with low or high sensitivity. A high quality company, like the one I work for (ATC), chooses lower sensitivity to improve bass response in a smaller speaker. Most high end companies with lower sensitivity speaker systems do it for the same "better performance" reason. Sensitivity is simply a measure of how efficient the complete system is, which is dictated by a whole series of choices like drivers, box, porting, etc.
Implying low sensitivity is a purely low cost choice/cheap system option is a not correct.
Jim Salk makes high quality, beautiful, and well-reviewed speakers, and I started this post because some that I ordered were 83 db. He is a very good example of why the claim you've just rebutted is wrong.
"Low-sensitivity some design for such have complex networks or need a small size. But in general, it means cheap low-powered magnets undersized transducers, and cabinets. It means the loudspeaker and owner of such has to purchase a massive power amplifier thus putting that speaker's cost savings back on the owner since now his amp costs more is larger and uses more energy. It also means thermal compression in most designs since amps heating VC."
I have to address this very confusing post.
Low sensitivity has little to do with the complexity of the crossover. A horn loaded design could use a simple 6dB per octave crossover and be very efficient; a sealed box design could be lower sensitivity and also have a 6dB/octave simple crossover, or a more complex 3rd of 4th order design for steeper slopes.
Low sensitivity is not a by product of reducing cost. A manufacturer could decide to build a cheap system with low or high sensitivity. A high quality company, like the one I work for (ATC), chooses lower sensitivity to improve bass response in a smaller speaker. Most high end companies with lower sensitivity speaker systems do it for the same "better performance" reason. Sensitivity is simply a measure of how efficient the complete system is, which is dictated by a whole series of choices like drivers, box, porting, etc.
Implying low sensitivity is a purely low cost choice/cheap system option is a not correct. Lower sensitivity speakers do not have overly complex networks by nature, or require massive power amplifiers. A 86/87dB 1w/1m speaker referred to often as "low sensitivity" is only 3dB away from a 90dB 1w/1m - referred to as a "high sensitivity speaker". This 3dB difference represents twice the power, so 100w/ch instead of 50w/ch or 200w/ch instead of 100w/ch. In this modern era where very good amplification is available at relatively low cost, a large power amp is inexpensive compared to their predecessors of even 10 years ago. Our own 150W channel P1 is roughly 3500 and the double the power (gaining +3dB) is only 4500. This $1000 is a far lower cost difference than many speaker upgrades.
Your comment that low powered magnets (I assume you really mean "smaller motors") are always related to low sensitivity is also not true. Small motors can be found in very expensive high efficiency loudspeakers. I remember my old Klipsch La Scalas (mid 70s era) used EV OEM components that had tiny motors, yet were very efficient. Small motors are usually a choice made by an engineer for price or some other reason, not efficiency. The massive motor in our 7 inch SL woofer in an ATC SCM19 with 86/87dB 1w/1m sensitivity is larger than most 15 inch LF drivers used in other consumer speakers. This larger motor gives us more control for lower distortion, not less control and higher distortion. No massive power amplifiers are needed to make up for the 3dB lower sensitivity issue and the benefits in clarity are measurable and very audible.
The thermal compression you speak of is purely a function of the driver's ability to dissipate heat, not the amplifier, as all voice coils get hot when "powered up" by any size amplifier. Its the inability to cool the driver that causes thermal compression and reduces driver performance. Thermal compression happens to high and low sensitivity speakers at all price points. Listeners will wonder why their speakers "sound different" when played loud for periods of time, this is a voice coil heating up and reducing its dynamic range. Since its impossible to see this in action, its within the driver itself, we cannot assess this externally or by any spec.
Brad ATC importer to the US Lone Mountain Consumer TransAudio Group Pro
One need only look around us to know that the phrase "hysterical cult" could never apply to people with preferences about speakers. We have hysteria, and we have cults, and they ain't talking about this.
Judging by this thread I'd say low sensitivity speakers have the
advantage of not having an hysterical cult following that refuses to
accept that what is most important to them isn't necessarily what is
most important to everyone.
A bit of innuendo here so if I might flesh this out a bit... The reason lower sensitivity speakers have a following is two things. Size, and the idea that efficiency is sacrificed for resolution. The first is very true the second is market- and not true. What this means is that if you want a wider bandwidth speaker, and in particular one that goes lower in the bass, in theory you can go lower with a smaller cabinet if the speaker is less efficient.
IMO/IME that is something very different from saying that there is something special about them as in the OP. And for the record there is nothing hysterical about me stating this; these simple facts (see Occam's Razor...) are well-known.
Judging by this thread I'd say low sensitivity speakers have the advantage of not having an hysterical cult following that refuses to accept that what is most important to them isn't necessarily what is most important to everyone.
I concur with johnk. My speakers have an efficiency of 2.7% and a low frequency response of -3 db @ 24 Hz. To get that high efficiency and low bass response and low distortion without a subwoofer requires large main speakers. No way around it. BTW; Some people prefer low efficiency speakers over high efficiency speakers and that's fine too.
If you want or need smaller speakers for whatever reason I’d say that is certainly special. So is higher efficiency that does not ask as much of an amp. Two different things. Both special but in different ways for different purposes. I will agree though that size does matter when it comes to speakers. It’s always a matter of trade offs.
I started this thread early in my system building. Jim Salk's lower priced smaller speakers provide the bass extension needed -- and you're right, Ralph -- it's not "special" in any real way, unless one is comparing what Jim is able to accomplish in his small speakers that others don't, as well.
Low-sensitivity speakers — What's special about them?
I regard this is the wrong question - better to ask what is special about high sensitivity speakers. I don't find anything special about low sensitivity as thermal compression is a common problem. People that listen to high efficiency speakers know this. I can't think of an advantage of low sensitivity- its not that they might be more revealing; IME they are less so.
Its easy to have a very efficient speaker. Just skimp on the bass extension. Most cheap speakers with limited bass extension are very efficient. THey have to be much larger to bee both efficient and have good quality extended bass.
~~~~~~~ Thing is the real orchestral music kicks in at 160hz. Why the need for 20hz-40hz?? But we will soon find out what kind of bass a wide really has. 2 weeks mine will be up N running. The wide band will be going aginst dual Seas W18's/per channel.
johnk1,596 posts07-14-2021 10:37amLow-sensitivity some design for such have complex networks or need a small size. But in general, it means cheap low-powered magnets undersized transducers, and cabinets. It means the loudspeaker and owner of such has to purchase a massive power amplifier thus putting that speaker's cost savings back on the owner since now his amp costs more is larger and uses more energy. It also means thermal compression in most designs since amps heating VC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~Smack Down~~~~One punch knock out
I just tried this just today with my Defy 7 100 watt amp, The more I pushed the gain, the less I got out the 87/91db speaker = distortion, coloration/unlistenable.
The benefit if done well (like Dynaudio in general) is more bass extension from a smaller box, but you need a beefier amp than otherwise typically to be able to deliver that bass. Power needs increase exponentially with lower frequency.
Its easy to have a very efficient speaker. Just skimp on the bass extension. Most cheap speakers with limited bass extension are very efficient. THey have to be much larger to bee both efficient and have good quality extended bass.
Or just offload the bass to a powered sub or two or 4 and most any decent quality speaker can cut it.
Low-sensitivity some design for such have complex networks or need a small size. But in general, it means cheap low-powered magnets undersized transducers, and cabinets. It means the loudspeaker and owner of such has to purchase a massive power amplifier thus putting that speaker's cost savings back on the owner since now his amp costs more is larger and uses more energy. It also means thermal compression in most designs since amps heating VC.
@lonemountain Your answer is so simple and logical. I suppose if some of the good stand mount speakers out there didn't try to do it all, they would be easier to drive and more easy to match with a variety of amps. It would be hard, though, for a speaker manufacturer to tell the consumer to get a sub with it if they want full bass.
When designing a driver, its a choice you make: efficiency or bandwidth. This choice doesn't change if the driver will be used in a horn or infinite baffle,
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