What creates the effortlessness in sound reproduction?

Hi Huy,

You’ve described one of the key qualities I like in a listening. It is like sitting on top of a mountain ridge and looking out for miles to the horizon.


My experience in trying to reproduce this is that it needs:

• Speakers which are measurably neutral, and smooth especially in the midrange to treble region. Lots of high end speakers with great press are measurably ragged here.
  
• Drivers which are free of compression
  
• Excellent room acoustics and/or controlled dispersion speakers. 

Based on reading on room acoustics and learning and brain behavior, it seems we spend a lot of brain energy pulling room acoustics out of what we hear. If you’ve ever been in a bad room talking to some one, or just listening and found it exhausting, this is why.


Best,

E

I think it could be efficiency, at least in the case of a pair of 99db efficient speakers I use (Klipsch Heresy IIIs). The sound gets thrown out from the speaker post haste. 

@wolf_garcia 

As others have pointed out, high efficiency drivers tend to have a lot less compression due to low power and low heat.

The coils and motors just don't heat up the same way.

What’s upstream driving the speakers is a major, MAJOR influence in the audio performance you wines ..... planning for system synergy and investing here first matters. 

the old adage still applies: “garbage in = garbage out“

There are about six or eight critical system factors that result in the "effortless" sound of speakers. It's a holistic system result, not just the speakers.