Speaker Efficiency

@mikelavigne wrote:

i’m not always the biggest Harley fan with his tendency toward hyperbole.....but in this case he nailes it. a quick read worth your time.

I fully agree - on all mentioned. 

@marktheshark wrote:

I have been listening to my Decware 300b tube amp for a few months now. At 8 watts, I have them paired with Klipsch Forte IV at 99db efficiency, and this set up has been sounding great. This morning I connected a pair of Sonus Faber Electa Amator speakers, 6ohms at 88db of efficiency. They sound fantastic, with more weight  and depth. I understand there is a huge price difference in the two speakers, but aside from that, if I am getting 80db of volume at my chair, 8' away, what is the draw back of using lower efficiency speakers with SET amps, so long as the volume is sufficient? I did notice turn the Pre amp, the tube amp and the Roon volume towards the highest setting, it starts sounding terrible....

There's the pragmatic approach that holds that if sounds great (i.e.: better) to your ears with an 8 watt SET amp to 88dB sensitive speakers in most any situation you can throw at it, then that's all that matters. 

I'd tempt that approach though by saying that such an amp/speaker combo defeats the purpose of the SET in particular; such an amp, to be its best, should be used using only a fraction of its output power to take advantage of its low distortion here, and for that you need high efficiency speakers (i.e.: no lower than honest ~98dB's) - preferably high impedance load. I would also be cautious about your 80dB listening level number as an indication of the actual load presented to the SET amp - at the listening distance, that is, with the particular speakers. You may well be running the amp closer to its ceiling than you might believe.