Late to the party, but I’ll never understand why folks don’t put systems together as a system and not just parts. Seems like folks just run to the net any buy used thinking it will all play well together. So many great products for all to enjoy, but not if they don’t play well together in the sandbox. Jmho. Not always about hard to drive, but I can say for my ears I usually gravitate to speakers that are easy to drive for most amps.
We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often
Sorry I know this is a bit of a rant, but come on people!!
Too many audiophiles find speakers which are hard to drive and... stick with them!
We need to reject hard-to-drive speakers as being Hi-Fi. Too many of us want our speakers to be as demanding as we are with a glass of wine. "Oh, this speaker sounds great with any amplifier, but this one needs amps that weigh more than my car, so these speakers MUST sound better..."
Speakers which may be discerning of amplifier current delivery are not necessarily any good at all at playing actual music.
That is all.
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Class D is going to make high sensitivity speakers obsolete. Amplification is a solved problem and the only thing left is to make it cheaper. The high end audio world has to a decent degree accepted that the Benchmark amp is essentially perfect. Some people want a particular flavor and that's fine, they can buy what they like. For those of us who want a straight wire with gain, class D is there. It's taken decades but there are now a bunch of class D amps that measure about as well as the Benchmark. And some of them are very powerful. The Hypex NCx500 module measures about as well as the Benchmark and is starting to show up in finished designs. |
Why? Choosing speakers to buy / avoid based on efficiency is like choosing a new car based on a sole factor such as weight or acceleration. I am not sure if I need to tell you it doesn't make sense. ATC drivers/speakers are one of the most inefficient speakers (around 85dB/w/m) but, with due amplification, I am pretty sure that I do not need to tell you how good they are. |
@jeffrey75 If the amplifier is behaving as a voltage source and the speaker is designed for that (and 99% are) then a flat impedance curve isn’t important, and if you look at the impedance curves of many speakers, you’ll see that most speaker designers don’t value a flat impedance curve.
@jon_5912 As a manufacturer of class D amplifiers I can tell you this statement isn’t correct. The advantage of higher sensitivity combined with higher impedance will always result in lower distortion from the amplifier and the speaker will have greater dynamic contrast owing to less thermal compression in the drivers, plus the speaker will be less critical of speaker cables. Until those three problems are solved easier to drive speakers will have an advantage.
See above. |
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