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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 1 response by mtrot

mtrot
804 posts
 
Hmm, I recently bought a new set of floor standers that are rated only 2 to 3dB lower efficiency than my existing floor standers.  This is in a 5.0 surround setup and the floor standers are used for the front L/R channels.  I have a very powerful amp powering the front L/R speakers, which should be able to deliver plenty of power to either of these sets.  Now, when watching movies with the new set, it just seems like the sound from the front L/R speakers is a bit anemic compared to the other set. 

I did use a sound meter to raise the sound levels in the new set to match my center channel speaker sound level.  Thus, both the old speakers and the new ones were set up to match the center speaker level. 
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