What is your take on high efficient speakers vs. low efficient speakers?


Consider both designs are done right and your other equipment is well matched with the speakers.  Do you have any preference when it comes to sound quality?  Is it matter of economic decision when it comes to price? - power amps can become very expensive when power goes up, on the other hand large,  efficient speakers are expensive as well.  Is your decision based on room size?  I'd love to hear from you on the subject. 

128x128tannoy56

Showing 2 responses by fleschler

@mijostyn  I heard the Carver Amazing line array speaker.  No bass.  Wonderful spacious sound and imaging in the mids and highs.  Don't know if it would work in my room.   

I heard the Volti Rivals as did my friends at a show and stayed for 1/2 hour.   Most satisfying horn speaker sound yet.  

Best sound/music reproduction ever was the $1+ million Von Schweikert Ultra 11 and 9 at shows.  No demerits, sounded as perfect as I'd want for every time of music (agreed by countless reviewers/listeners over the years).  They are bigger moderately efficient designs with lots of drivers/bass.  The older designs were just as efficient but smaller speakers requiring only moderate power 25 to 100 watts (VR series speakers). 

I also prefer high efficiency speakers but they have big/many woofers to produce bass (Legacy Focus and Signature IIIs).  Noise is more prominent than lower efficiency speakers but so what, dynamics are easy to get, especially when loud.  I play my jazz and classical music up to 95 db all the time in a custom built listening room (expensive).   Average volume in the 80s db.   

Harbeth 40 series (top) speakers are rated inefficient with high impedance.  Relatively easy to drive with moderate power.  They never failed to sound excellent, especially nice in the mids.   At shows, no one says best in show but always musical as the mid-range is 90% of the music.   Much like Von Schweikert speakers.  I would rather own Tannoy's than most horns or stats (had stats for 20 years in my youth).   My wite of 24 years hated the big stats (ML Monolith IIIs) as they had limited dynamics, beamy, limited bass in particular.  I've moved on then to dynamic speakers and not return to stats ever (including good sounding Soundlabs).