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 there must be other factors. Why don't all speaker manufacturers build exclusively high sensitivity speakers?
@clearthinker Cost, in a nutshell. High efficiency drivers are much more expensive due to a greater degree of precision required to precisely place the voice coil in a narrower gap, plus a more powerful magnet system.
Back when tube-based amplification was the only option, and most tube amps were really low powered, designing speakers with high sensitivity was the only way to go--there was simply no alternative if you wanted to reproduce voice or music.
With the advent of transistors, and then ever "cheaper" watts, designers started creating lower sensitivity speakers. Think Thiel, Apogee, and a bunch of others. It's reasonable to assume that they had specific design goals that led them in this direction, and that it wasn't the result of a lack of effort on their part.
The renaissance of tube amplification has seen a similar movement among suitable speakers, so nowadays there are plenty of options for everybody. Of course, it's preposterous to rule out all speakers under a certain sensitivity.
Another major factor here is impedance; speaker sensitivity doesn't exist in some kind of electro-acoustic vacuum. A certain well-known brand makes speakers with 86dB sensitivity but about an average 12 ohm impedance. Go figure.
The long and the short is: find the speaker first that most pleases you, then find the right amp to drive it. This advice has already been repeated many times over on this forum.
Encouraging to see at least some get it. Not surprised at all to see the O P does not.
Maybe because it helps to want to understand? People who want to understand tend to say things like so and so says. People who want to argue, instead of says which is neutral and true they say things like bleats which is insulting and demeaning. This may be from learning by bad example or could be they resort to insults because they don’t have an argument. Either way it’s an insult not an argument.
Others here are in love with tech talk. There’s definitely a place for that but I prefer whenever possible to stick with good solid practical advice. It may be at times hard to understand why it works but it does in fact work and therefore is practical. Useful. All these useless pie in the sky fantasy questions the OP is asking, "why?" Can be argued endlessly.
My advice is simple: exclude from consideration speakers less than 92dB sensitivity.
Don’t read into that facts not in evidence. Not saying buy high sensitivity. Not saying they all sound great. Not saying low sensitivity speakers sound worse. Not saying there is any correlation at all between sensitivity and sound quality. Not saying anything other than exactly what I already said: building a really good high end system is hard enough already. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.
Chasing flavors of distortion aka cone breakup or the focused constructive and destructive interference of a horn does not move accurate reproduction forward. Nothing wrong with picking baskin Robbins flavor #426 if that is your thing...
pistonic motion cuts 3db off sensitivity, ain’t no free lunch
Lower sensitivity can produce more bass with a smaller enclosure but need power. Higher ones for same amount of bass require larger cabinets but less power. Higher efficiency could have better dynamic contrasts and a greater sense of liveiness, and offer better sound at low levels, but this is general. Depends on matching on your musical tastes. In truth you can have great designs from both worlds. G
You can find great sounding speakers at any efficiency level.
I also advise avoiding low sensitivity speakers for a few reasons.
1. less power needed 2. less power makes it much easier to try tubes 3. lower power amp,
tube or ss: smaller, less weight, less heat, greater flexibility of placement 4. less cost gives more money for the speakers, the most important determinant of SQ. 5. less money in the future when making changes. 6. less money leaves more to spend on content!
When you hear an inefficient speaker and fall in love, you are doomed!
Sure, there are good designs from many different topologies. But after owning over 30 high end speakers I have to say (at least for me) that the better ones have always been easier to drive and not requiring an arc welder of an amp. As in most things, simpler is usually better. Give me a pair of horns and a low-medium powered tube amp for sound that just grabs you and pulls you in.
, Sensitivity depend of moving mass cone and magnet performance. To achieve good bass and we have to use very big enclosure .or use active bass with build in amp. we can use unexpansive class D amp to drive bass section and use external high quality low power amp to drive all above low frequency region. Some company included me follow this way
Great sounding speakers come in all sensitivities, it is all about design goals.
And a designer may feel that certain drivers give them the sound they are looking for and those drivers may not be all that efficient.
And some companies may feel that exclusivity is more profitable than wide appeal.
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