why do companies continue to make speakers below 89-88db? Is it just a conspiracy to sell mega-bucks amplifiers?
Also,
for some reason I have never met a high sensitivity speaker that I
like. I listened to a bunch of Klipsch Heritage speakers (except
LaScalas), Devore Orangutan 0/96, JBL. etc. I cannot put my finger on
it, but there's something about low sensitivity speakers that pull me in
much more so than the high sensitivity ones. I'm sure I'm not the only
one, otherwise why would anyone ever buy them.
Drivers with low efficiency are a lot easier to make since they need less precision in the voice coil gap. So its easier to make money and solid state power is inexpensive, so this works for many manufacturers.
The only problem is that low efficiency speakers are inherently less dynamic, owing to a thing called 'thermal compression'. This is the quality of the voice coil to heat up in an instantaneous fashion, preventing the amplifier from making as much power since its impedance of the voice coil goes up with the heat.
This is easy to hear and easy to measure.
My surmise is you've not heard a higher efficiency speaker set up properly. When that happens you get no less resolution (often more) and no more coloration. My speakers (Classic Audio Loudspeakers model T3-3) go down to 20Hz flat; they are 98dB and 16 ohms. You don't need a lot of power to make them play- 50 watts is usually far more than enough. This is easy for both tube and solid state amps. The higher impedance allows all amplifiers to have audibly and measurably less distortion. 'Audibly' because the most audible distortion is higher ordered harmonics and intermodulations; small reductions of that result in smoother more detailed sound.
