Is the most efficient speaker the best speaker?

These kind of discussions would have more weight if we were to quantify what is high sensitvity, medium and low ..

A horn speaker with a sensitivity of 100db/w/m being driven by a 20w SET, will have far less db gain and dynamics when compared to a planer speaker with a sensitivity of 86db/w/m being driven by a 200 watt amp @ a listening distance of 15 ft.

regards,

Hi,
Weseixas, basd on your example of the two systems above, the horn/SET 20watt wouuld have much more available headroom (dynamic reserve)than the inefficient system. At 15 feet(roughly 5 meters) to achieve a sound level of 94db the horn/SET would require 4 watts, the planer/200 w system would need 128 watts. 5 divided by 20 is a much smaller % of available power rhan 128/200w, thus far more reserve headroom for the higher efficiency system.
Best Regards,

Apogee Stages were notoriously inefficient, but, for what they did, were in a class by themselves.

Weseixas, I think you might want to recalculate that.

Through the years I have found that going down in amplifier power and up in speaker efficiency has given me the best sound. I am currently running an Altec 604 based speaker which is 101db. I have this matched up with 1 watt Serious Stereo 2A3 monoblocks. When called upon this combination can produce very high db levels in my 14 X 30 foot room.