Speaker sensitivity vs SQ

The few high-end brands left are struggling for market share in this age of ear buds.

Thanks great post...

It explain to me why my Tannoy were so good.... 😁

Alas! i own them no more...(2 pairs)

Happily my Mission Cyrus help me to forget them, they are very well embedded in all 3 dimensions, then even if they are not on par in quality with the Tannoy, they sound better than my Tannoy non well embedded ever sounded to my ears...

I will not go further, the word "embeddings" is not very liked, being not understood....

My best to all...

A note: someone not tired to read all day long reviews of costly new electronical design possible "upgrades" said that my "evangelization" of people is too much for his ears.... It is unbeliveable that people are so gullible to throw their money without thinking about the way to use in the better way possible what they already own....




«You can change opinions, you cannot change science»- Harpo Marx

«It is like reverse engineering brother, you can change science and after that opinions change»-Groucho Marx

This "signal to noise" ratio thing has implications for the sense of envelopment as well: The further down in level we can still detect the reverberation tails on the recording, the stronger the perception of the recording venue's hall ambience. (This isn't the only thing that matters for "envelopment" to take place, but imo it's one of them.)

Hence why I will harp incessantly w.r.t. acoustics and take with a grain of salt many audiophile claims, especially after seeing listening rooms. Totally laughable when they then make claims about other people's systems not being resolving enough.  But I digress.

Duke, I am not sure your friend has discovered something new, so much as documented what has previously been discovered, but not documented in the real world very much. This paper is a bit of an oldy, but still a goody.  It's from 1992. Okay, it just seems old:  https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/15_Mfrs_Publications/Harman_Int%27l/AES-Other_Publications/LS_...    There is a good discussion on driver structure as it relates to heat transfer.  Interesting that relatively old Alnico, which is relatively inexpensive, but still more expensive than ceramic, has great thermal properties.


We audiophiles are to blame (well some of us are). Take one poor measurement to sound correlation (70s/80s and distortion), throw in another weak one (CDs), and as opposed to screaming for better measurements from manufacturers, we let them use it as an excuse to no longer provide measurements as opposed to providing better measurements. If your friend can measure it, then speaker manufacturers can, but they don't because measurements can't possibly tell you how something will sound .....   Oh well, reap what you sew.

Hence why I will harp incessantly w.r.t. acoustics and take with a grain of salt many audiophile claims, especially after seeing listening rooms. Totally laughable when they then make claims about other people's systems not being resolving enough. But I digress.

I'm with you.  What I think I have observed is

a - Self delusion
b - A large variability in the ear brain mechanism being able to filter out room acoustics.

Based on what I know about machine learning, and neural nets, and observations at shows, I believe some listeners can pick out some delicate traits about system despite absolutely terrible rooms.

I personally, cannot.  As studies in learning and acoustics have shown, filtering out noise is energy consuming.  Your brain works harder in an acoustically messy environment and I absolutely feel it.

@erik_squires wrote:

"As studies in learning and acoustics have shown, filtering out noise is energy consuming. Your brain works harder in an acoustically messy environment and I absolutely feel it."

Totally agree.

In home audio, "your brain works harder" = listening fatigue.

[public service announcement] In an acoustically messy environment like the back of a classroom (or even worse the back of a lecture hall), "your brain works harder" = you are straining to use ALL of your CPU power just to understand the individual words, and that takes not only more energy but also more TIME. So by the time you understand one word, the lecturer has already moved on to the next word, and you have neither the spare CPU power nor the TIME to comprehend complex concepts so that you can store them in your long-term memory. This is one of the reasons why the kids in the back of the classroom get tired within fifteen minutes and are by far the ones most likely to flunk. So even if they are shy introverts, tell your kid and grandkids to sit in the front if at all possible! [/p.s.a.]

Duke

Surprised that no one has mentioned “Hoffmann’s Iron Rule” in this discussion.

Josef Anton Hoffman was the “H” in the original KLH company. He was an audio engineer who theorized that you could only have two of the following in speaker design, never all three:

1. Small speaker enclosure
2. High efficiency
3. Accurate bass response

That is, if you want an efficient speaker with accurate bass, you cannot have a small speaker enclosure. 
Likewise, you can have a small speaker enclosure with good efficiency, but bass response and accuracy will be limited. 
My impression is that speaker design is primarily driven by that limitation when addressing SQ and efficiency.