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Speaker sensitivity vs SQ

My first thread at AG.

Millercarbon continues to bleat on about the benefits of high sensitivity speakers in not requiring big amplifier watts.
After all, it's true big amplifiers cost big money.  If there were no other factors, he would of course be quite right.

So there must be other factors.  Why don't all speaker manufacturers build exclusively high sensitivity speakers?
In a simple world it ought to be a no-brainer for them to maximise their sales revenue by appealing to a wider market.

But many don't.  And in their specs most are prepared to over-estimate the sensitivity of their speakers, by up to 3-4dB in many cases, in order to encourage purchasers.  Why do they do it?

There must be a problem.  The one that comes to mind is sound quality.  It may be that high sensitivity speakers have inherently poorer sound quality than low sensitivity speakers.  It may be they are more difficult to engineer for high SQ.  There may be aspects of SQ they don't do well.

So what is it please?

128x128clearthinker
erik_squires
16,039 posts
 
Well, color me surprised, again, that we are comparing insensitive speakers for sound quality.  I though this would be about efficiency and how high efficiency drivers, heating up less, were often less prone to thermal compression.

I'm not sure how we can correlate efficiency or sensitivity to sound quality if we are confounding the discussion with types of motors.
erik_squires
16,039 posts
 
@audiokinesis

A couple of years ago I read an article on compression in traditional dome tweeters.  I was 99% sure it was from the late, great Dr. Siegfried Linkwitz but now I can't find it.

Anyway, yeah, thermal compression happened supper fast.  First tone burst was normal, then by the second only the first couple of cycles were even close to the original output.
mtrot
804 posts
 
Hmm, I recently bought a new set of floor standers that are rated only 2 to 3dB lower efficiency than my existing floor standers.  This is in a 5.0 surround setup and the floor standers are used for the front L/R channels.  I have a very powerful amp powering the front L/R speakers, which should be able to deliver plenty of power to either of these sets.  Now, when watching movies with the new set, it just seems like the sound from the front L/R speakers is a bit anemic compared to the other set. 

I did use a sound meter to raise the sound levels in the new set to match my center channel speaker sound level.  Thus, both the old speakers and the new ones were set up to match the center speaker level. 
audiokinesis
2,735 posts
 
@mijostyn wrote:

"Duke, your friend has more work to do. There are so many factors involved that I doubt you can make a blanket statement that high efficiency speakers are ALL more dynamic than low efficiency speakers of various types given appropriate power. "

I don’t think I made a blanket statement. Here is what I actually wrote:

"My friend finds a STRONG CORRELATION between efficiency and freedom from compression on peaks... IN GENERAL high efficiency and large-diameter voice coils translate to freedom from compression on peaks."

Emphasis mine in both quotes.

In my opinion "strong correlation" and "in general" are not blanket assertions, whereas "all" would have been. 

Duke
erik_squires
16,039 posts
 
Everything that I’ve ever read about dynamic speakers agrees with Duke’s friend's observations.

Bigger voice coil, more ventilation, lower power dissipation result in lower dynamic compression. Of course, all things are not ever equal, but the difference in engineering speakers for professional, continuous high power use vs. consumer speakers is all out there to read. If you want to maintain high output you must control the heat, weather by reducing power dissipated or increasing ventilation or both.


@audiokinesis
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