Hi efficient speaker, bass problems

Most speakers I have heard that do bass well are not considered high efficiency.

I do not have enough experience with high end high efficiecy speakers to say.

I think I notice it with more common commercial and other horn designs I have heard but that may not be a fair comparison.

I suspect that high efficiency designs do bass best with different amps (tube amps?) than less efficient ones in general ( SS amps).

It seems to me that crossovers in lower efficiency speakers that do bass well have something to do with it but not sure why exactly.

It will take a multiple driver system to have 90+ db sensitivity and have good bass.

Regards,

Hi Weseixas,
I'm not sure your last statement is entirely true. Maybe if you mean bass down to 20hz, but I have used a couple of different 15's that get you down to near 30hz that did a great job, with sensitivity ratings of 97 & 99.
Both were several years ago, it may be true today, but I'd be surprised that there are no good Hi Sensitivity drivers at all today.
Tim

Hello Tim,

I'm sure that speaker was not 97 or 99 db 1w/1m @ 30 hz or even 50 hz, very unlikely. Now put it in a 2 way system where it's bandwidth is as high as 500-700 hz, there is no way it will maintain that kind of sensitivity at 30 hz without somekind of EQ. compensation.

If you want to do it right and with low distortion it would require multiple bass drivers IMO, can it be done without , yes and draw the kind of comments mentioned by the OP...

Regards,

Hi Wes,
Well after I wrote, I searched my memory long and hard, You are correct, but absolutely wrong. I recall one was an Audax pro 15. 101 sensitivity, Fs was around 23, but qts was something like .2, we added a fair amount of mass which drove the fs down to around 19 or 20 and qms changed enough that qts was around .32... Sensitivity was still in the very high 90's. I'm not exact on numbers, but I'm not off by much. So, yes we modified the woofer, it wasn't stock, But your statement of "no way" it worked fine without eq compensation. I don't recall the exact model, but it was a PR380 series... Take a look, then say "ok way".
Tim