Speaker sensitivity vs SQ

lalitk,

I've heard the Canterbury and other coaxial Tannoy speakers and liked what I heard.  I just did not consider them in the discussion because they I did not consider them to be a single, full-range driver.  But, they are certainly great sounding examples of fairly highly efficient speakers that are easy to drive and can be run with low-powered amps.  I also agree they are quite nice to look at too.

I have a friend who is now in the process of building a system using the coaxial Altec 604 drivers from Great Plains Audio.  At one point, he considered an Onken cabinet, but, the available designs for this driver specify a 360 liter cabinet (one and half times the size of the Canterbury's Onken cabinet) and this was too large to be practical.  Too bad, I like the sound of Onken bass reflex speakers.

Thank you nwres, bache, atmasphere for responding to my question.

Which was:  If there are such big advantages in high sensitivity speakers why do so many manufacturers build low sensitivity speakers?

Thank you jetter for your kind words.

To miller: I don't want you replying to my posts if you will not answer the question.  It helps if you can read and your mind is not closed.

John DeVore's informative and well presented video does not bear on my question at all.

To everyone else: I am not interested in what speakers you like.  Nor in how to build a high sensitivity speaker - I just want to know why most aren't doing it.  There must be reasons and they are probably technical, or related to cost vs SQ.  We are not there yet.

OP,

It is about the cost of building/selling/ever decreasing market for large speakers as many have said.

I wouldn’t want to pay for the speakers I luckily inherited, and the typically large house with large listening space they would sound best in.

likewise, I wouldn’t want the challenge of finding small speakers that sound so good I have to have them, nor then have to pay for the additional power they would need.

audiokinesis

8 CF!

You made me drag out my drawings for the enclosures I designed, for the drivers I inherited, with the help of Electro-Voice Engineers and my AV Consultant for my current speakers.

Deducting elements within the enclosure, I ended up with net internal volume 6.01 CF

And, responding to my youthful excess, we designed a rear tuned port to squeak out a bit more from the 37 lb 15" woofers. I left the ports open in prior location, ’hear/feel those canons! I closed them when I moved here. Bass is tighter, bass imaging very good, I frequently advise front facing subs located near the mains to achieve imaging of bass. I advise against ports, if any front firing.

They shouldn’t fit here. They are big, this house is a small split level. I got very lucky here, they fit, look, sound great. Whenever we go to other people’s houses, or look inside a house when they are for sale, I always look for where they would go. I see very few houses with a good space for them, even the big Victorian Monsters in the six historic districts of my town.

They are in the background of my ’cleaning LP’s photo’ in my listing on eBay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133612076659

They are extremely efficient, I could shake the walls with 5 watts probably, I sometimes think about trying my friends 8 wpc amps, but they were driven by 30 wpc mono blocks originally, the amps still work, I have stayed in the 30-35, now 45 wpc size, not too big, not too heavy, not too much heat range. That is the max size tube amp I would want to pay for, or less.

Thanks for inspiring me to look at those old drawings, jogs some great memories.

millercarbon is recommending to exclude all Magnepan speakers as options. In doing so, he is recommending to exclude the best imaging, soundstage, midrange, and treble producing speakers on the market in their price ranges. It's fine that he makes such a recommendation, it doesn't mean anyone should listen to his recommendation or to me, for that matter.

Speakers alone make no sound. Complete systems do. Need to examine the complete system before any meaningful comparison can be made.

My understanding is MC prefers high efficiency speakers because they tend to be easier to drive and will work well with most any amp. There is truth to that. However high efficiency speakers also tend to be large and often expensive. Also bulky and more than many would prefer to have to deal with. That’s why the trend is towards smaller speakers that are necessarily lower efficiency if also extended in the bass. Amp choices for best possible performance are still plentiful but more limited. Many tube amps need not apply.

MC is also a Tekton fan. Tekton does tend to offer larger speakers that are more efficient than most but not as efficient as true "high efficiency" speakers like Klipsch, Avantgarde, Volti, Classic Audio Design, and others. Notice most of those are also large and apply horn/waveguide technology to deliver true high efficiency in something some might want in their homes. Tekton offers good value compared to many for large more efficient than most speakers.

So high efficiency alone can be a good thing but like always no one approach has all the advantages that all will care about most.

Also I gather MCs mindset is real men like large manly speakers that may not be very pretty whereas you are perhaps a bit of a w-ss if you care about aesthetics and how they look in your house. That’s for the wife to care about and the real men to ignore.

At least that is my understanding of how MC thinks, FWIW.