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Speaker sensitivity vs SQ

My first thread at AG.

Millercarbon continues to bleat on about the benefits of high sensitivity speakers in not requiring big amplifier watts.
After all, it's true big amplifiers cost big money.  If there were no other factors, he would of course be quite right.

So there must be other factors.  Why don't all speaker manufacturers build exclusively high sensitivity speakers?
In a simple world it ought to be a no-brainer for them to maximise their sales revenue by appealing to a wider market.

But many don't.  And in their specs most are prepared to over-estimate the sensitivity of their speakers, by up to 3-4dB in many cases, in order to encourage purchasers.  Why do they do it?

There must be a problem.  The one that comes to mind is sound quality.  It may be that high sensitivity speakers have inherently poorer sound quality than low sensitivity speakers.  It may be they are more difficult to engineer for high SQ.  There may be aspects of SQ they don't do well.

So what is it please?

128x128clearthinker

Showing 4 responses by bdp24

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bdp24
9,470 posts
 
Excellent @glubson. From the fertile mind of Bruce Thigpen, the Eminent Technology TRW-17 Rotary Subwoofer, for the bottom octave (20-40Hz) down (fed enough power, flat to 1Hz!).
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,470 posts
 

At the time Bill Johnson was starting his Audio Research Corporation (1970), his reference loudspeaker was doubled pairs of the KLH 9 Full range ESL (two 9’s per side). High-sensitivity loudspeakers were very available at the time (I heard the ARC SP-2 and D-50 driving a pair of huge bass reflex speakers in ’71), though the new small---and rather insensitive---acoustic suspension designs (pioneered by Acoustic Research with their AR-1 and -3) were quickly becoming the norm. But the sound quality provided by the KLH 9 was preferred to all of them by Johnson (and J. Gordon Holt of Stereophile), this in spite of the fact that the KLH 9 was an extremely insensitive design, and presented an insane load for the power amp (highly capacitive, with a ridiculous impedance profile).

Johnson then heard the new magnetic-planar made by fellow Minnesota resident Jim Winey, the Magneplanar Tympani T-I, and declared that it made the KLH 9 now unlistenable. While the T-I did not possess the high capacitance and impedance characteristics of the KLH, it was even more insensitive. Is there a more power-hungry loudspeaker than Maggies? Once again, Johnson’s reference speaker was an extremely insensitive design. He so liked the Tympani he offered to distribute Magneplanar through his dealer network. Yes, while Maggies present a load to power amps that more sensitive designs don’t, they also create a sound none of them do. The same is true of large full range ESL’s. Pick yer poison!

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,470 posts
 
I have yet to hear the OB speakers Danny Richie offers in his various GR Research kits, but they are pretty darn sensitive (mid-to-high 90's) and are reportedly very transparent, natural at timbre reproduction, and dynamic as well. As soon as social interaction is again possible, I plan on inviting myself over to the Portland home of the Audiogoner who owns the NX-Otica (I think), which he pairs with the Rythmik/GRR OB/Dipole Sub, which I too built.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,470 posts
 

The SoundLab ESL's are considered by some to be one of the best sounding line of loudspeakers available. They are also notoriously insensitive, and a very demanding load for a power amplifier They are also extremely transparent, and about as good at reproducing instrumental and vocal timbres as any speaker I have heard..

Then there is the Altec Voice-Of-The-Theater loudspeaker (A7), a very sensitive and easy-to-drive speaker. I lived with a pair for six months, and consider it to be as colored a loudspeaker as I have ever heard. Intolerably, comically colored. It's akin to a video monitor with it's color temperature WAY off, and its contrast control turned to max. Nasty, ugly sound, like chewing foil.

If you compare the two, and prefer the A7 because it is more sensitive/easier to drive than is a SoundLab, we'll have to agree to disagree. That's like preferring a smaller house to a larger one because it's cheaper to heat and cool.

Of course, it all depends on one's priorities in reproduced music. If dynamics is your No.1, high efficiency is for you. I myself am not willing to give up transparency and/or natural timbre reproduction to get dynamics. Are dynamics and transparency/lack-of-coloration mutually exclusive? I haven't heard everything (including the Tektons), but from what I have, I find the two inextricably related.

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