The two most common mistakes are bass and treble


OK, so I know many of you will have a knee jerk reaction to that with something like "well you've just covered most of the spectrum!" but I mean to say more than what I can fit in a headline.

When first purchasing speakers the biggest regrets, or sometimes bad choices without regret, is looking for a speaker that is too detailed. In the store over 10 minutes it mesmerizes you with the resolution of frequencies you thought you would never hear again.  You take the speakers home and after a month you realize they are ear drills.  High pitched, shrill sounding harpies you can't believe you listened to long enough to make a choice.

The other mistake, which audiophiles life with far too long is buying too big a speaker for the room.  The specmanship of getting 8 more Hertz in the -3dB cutoff is a huge factor in speaker purchases.

What do you think the biggest mistakes are when buying speakers?
erik_squires
I even see I. Audiophile community- referring to the same 3-4 brands of “high end” speakers over and again when they describe their systems.  
Within a specific power envelope ?

The other problem you deal with is of course that you get thermal compression if the speaker lacks efficiency. You can’t solve this by getting a more powerful amp

No, you can solve it by various aspects of speaker driver and crossover designi. I don‘t think anyone could state that the ATC SCM50 (85db/W/m) suffers unduly from thermal compression. There are many other manufacturers who are cognisant of the impacts of thermal compression and design their drive units accordingly.
We make amps from 30 to 500 watts. And certainly, anyone *could* state that the ATC SCM50 (85db/W/m) suffers unduly from thermal compression.


You can't solve thermal compression via crossover design or internal amplifiers for the loudspeaker system. Thermal compression is a function of the voice coil itself.

Rather than explain how this works I've linked a Wiki page below.


This is not mysterious; thermal compression has been a known thing for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_compression

Dear @erik_squires : Probably not to have clear what he is looking for that could satisfy that gentleman.

An audiophile that wants to buy a new speakers must have defined his targets about, each one of us have a " little " different audio/MUSIC kind of sound that we like it and our priorities about just are different too.

After that he needs to made his own research through the " infinite " audio forums in the internet and the digital speakers reviews by magazynes as TAS or ST or many others. If all those is not enough for he can has 3-4 speaker alternatives to look for then start a thread in Agon or other forums looking for whole advice.

I think that after all those the key to decides about is to have the opportunity ( looking for. ) to listen the speakers at his place that several times is not posible to do it.

Yes, a rookie normally made all mistakes you posted and several of the ones other gentlemans posted in the thread.

Bta, @clio09 posted " We’re not going to see a huge spike in the manufacturing of high impedance, high efficiency speakers anytime soon just because it’s the better method. "

Certainly not. It’s stupid to think that today SS electronics are designed like in the very old times. SS electronics has no problems about, tube alternative is " touched " by all those problems and that’s why are crying for what you said clio.

From more than 10 years now the SS electronics designers are improved its designs and they design for " any " kind of characterisitcs of almost any speakers in the market. Even today we don’t read threads in the audio forums talking of today SS clipping in amps due that the designs comes with a wide headroom.

In the other side today speakers designers know everything to avoid all the in theory " problems " posted here with their designs. Again is stupid to argue about. Of course that do not exist the perfect speaker always there are trade-offs  down the whole design and those trade-offs are not only by thechnical aspects but with some limitation because the manufacturer designs for a market's price.

Gentlemans we are living in 2021.

Btw, audio distributors/dealers improved its quality service/advise to the customers too because they want sold their products but at the same time they don’t want it to " buy " problems with their customers.

As any other activity the whole audio community improved/enhanced over the years and customers too. Obviously that nothing is perfect down there and could be some kind of " problems " with rookies/newcomers but nothing dramatic or critical.

Today people is better informed if know from where take the information, something that’s easy to do.

Well, at least all those is my take and an additional opinion here.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
Btw, we have to remember too that speaker/amp manufacturers depends of what the parts suppliers/manufacturers have on hand/offer.

R.
Why is it that speakers with 90-98 db efficiency but steep phase angles and impedances in the 3 ohm range for bass can sound superb with well designed 30 watt amps?  I also prefer more efficient speakers but have recognized that low efficiency speakers (mid-80 db) with benign phase angles and nominal 8 ohm impedances are just as good and easy to drive.   Only a few high end box/dynamic speakers are both efficient and have 8 ohm nominal impedances.  The room acoustics are so important to the reproduction of sound and musical pleasure that this discussion of bass and treble seems banal.  There are many ways to make a good match between speakers and amps that no one method is "best."