Is the most efficient speaker the best speaker?

Is it really necessary to achieve potentially hearing damaging levels of 100db and higher to fully enjoy one`s home audio system? I don`t believe people have to mimic ultra high and uncomfortable sound pressure if they have a reasonably quality system with very good musicality and resolution(and want good hearing a few years down the road).

Charles1dad, with all due respect to Atmasphere, I'm confident that he was only referring to intermittent peak levels. On the one hand, I do agree with him that being able to replicate absolute live levels is a good thing, on the other hand, I agree with you, in the big scheme of things it doesn't seem like the highest priority for most of us.

Atmasphere:

Are you saying that an amplifier will have to have fixed current to sound good on horns ... ?

So any amplifier with transformers should work IYO ..

Is it really necessary to achieve potentially hearing damaging levels of 100db and higher to fully enjoy one`s home audio system? I don`t believe people have to mimic ultra high and uncomfortable sound pressure if they have a reasonably quality system with very good musicality and resolution(and want good hearing a few years down the road).

-06-24-11: Charles1dad

Hello Charles1dad, IMO, usually speakers that lack dynamics and or have uneven power curves tend to sound at there best "loud" ...

For the most part all amplifiers tend to sound there best when run at no more than 33% of rated output, we need a lot more power than most would think to recreate live ( not SPL ) but realism of sound ...

regards,

The interesting thing to with regard to using speakers that offer an amp an easier ride to fixed current, is that it seems to be easier to make such a speaker with a steady low impedance and hence lower efficiency, than it is to do with a speaker with a higher impedance and hence higher efficiency.