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
@tomic601 , that makes no sense at all.
If you go into an actual natural environment, short of being in a cave, or very close to a cliff, or in front of a large tree, the only source of reflection is the ground, and normally that is dirt and somewhat soft (absorptive) ground cover. Trees by virtue of being somewhat round, make excellent diffusers. That negates your whole argument right there.

Also negating your argument is your room is not the recording studio, or the concert hall, or the church. For the most part you want to negate the impact of the room so that the acoustical cues in the recording are clearly communicated to the ears/brain and you hear what was recorded.  Removing early/loud reflections via speaker placement, broad band absorbers, and diffusion absolutely will do this. Close late reflections are bad too.

I expect few people have actually heard stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not bad at all, with pin point natural imaging. There is a big difference between audio reproduction and a new sound created in a room.  Voices sound weird in an anechoic chamber because there is none of the expected echo.  Recorded music sounds predominantly natural because the echos are already built into the recording. Your eyes and brain may be at odds though. That nature you mentioned?  Predominantly it behaves more like an anechoic chamber w.r.t. music reproduction than it does the average listening room.
reread my post, i said zip about anything but absorption. take another run at finding a 6” absorber in nature. Its a hole in the acoustic space the brain is trying to reconstruct. I am a principal in a recording studio with a mobile location rack. You can catch up later.
the natural world is full of diffraction, most sterile audiophile rooms lack it bigtime...except for the forest of amplifiers blocking the path to the turntable ( which should be off to the side )
The GR Research high sensitivity speakers are, in a word, stunning.  I had a pair of the old Super V's.  Then a pair of Wedgies on top of 2x12 open baffle servo subs (flat to 20Hz at brutal levels).  I'm getting ready to build a pair of NX-Tremes.  Once one goes to really good open baffle speakers it is very, VERY hard to consider anything else.  Watch these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYP-XErZHu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xxFKVC2Xro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgoR2PLEZsk

i spent a decent amount of my career in anechoic chambers testing advanced technology, simple stuff , some suborbital. my prefered vendor of loudspeakers ( since 1977 ) actually have and use a chamber for development and importantly production, doing the precise work of tuning to a standard and nulling. Do you have a chamber ?