We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

@steve59 

Typically, speakers respond to the amount of current available…. Basically the number of electrons instantaneously available when a bass note comes along. Watts does not measure this. Amps do. I remember getting my first truly high powered amp it was 250 wpc… but could put out around 4 amps… that was roughly what my arc welder put out at work. When you have that much power in your amp, it just grabs your speaker and says…”do this”, and compliance is mandatory. It does it. 

@steve59,

What speakers do you have?

Mike

there are so many things we should reject. Not sure hard to drive speakers are at the top of my list. 

Just found this thread again.  I completely agree with you about your post Sounds_real!  Too many folks read specs etc… and forget to put a true ‘system’ together.  As long as you have the system to match your speakers, you’ll never have to worry about specs and how hard or easy a speaker is to drive.  

I’ve always marveled at how many folks just assume speakers with lower efficiency ratings assume they are hard to drive etc…, but in fact they may end up being easy to drive in real life.  

As long as you have the system to match your speakers, you’ll never have to worry about specs and how hard or easy a speaker is to drive.

Well, how exactly do you match those without a lot of trial and error, or social knowledge if you can’t actually rely on specs?

As a consumer this seems like a ton of work. Sometimes this work is a lot more because vendors ( looking at you, KEF ) completely mischaracterize their products.