Rlew,
I am only concerned that someone reading this thread will think that a high sensitivity speaker is necessarily better than a low sensitivity speaker.
Unlike the general rule about a bigger box having better bandwidth and therefore being a better speaker.....there is no simple rule of thumb for efficiency.
There are indeed advantages in high sensitiivity speakers, as myself and others have pointed out, such as a better dynamic range (less compression), however speaker design requires a balance of compromises and high sensitivity is not always better.
In very general terms, ultra-efficient speakers should be avoided just as ultra-inefficient speakers should be avoided. Both will have strengths but extremes are generally achieved with large compromises in other areas instead of an overall balance in performance.
Let me give a couple of examples of how a manufacturer can achieve high efficiency at the expense of distortion;
Long coil operating in short magnetic gap gives a low cost and highly efficient driver but it increases harmonic distortion as the voice coil operates outside the linear area of the short magnet gap. Also the heat dissapation is poor in these designs....so while they are highly sensitive they do not dissipate heat as well as a shorter coil in a longer magnet gap.
Very light rigid cone diaphragms made from hard/stiff materials (magnesium,ceramic,polymers). These efficient rigid low mass cones have low internal damping and tend to have high Q resonances. This efficient choice of cone leads to higher harmonic distortion than more critically damped designs.
I am only concerned that someone reading this thread will think that a high sensitivity speaker is necessarily better than a low sensitivity speaker.
Unlike the general rule about a bigger box having better bandwidth and therefore being a better speaker.....there is no simple rule of thumb for efficiency.
There are indeed advantages in high sensitiivity speakers, as myself and others have pointed out, such as a better dynamic range (less compression), however speaker design requires a balance of compromises and high sensitivity is not always better.
In very general terms, ultra-efficient speakers should be avoided just as ultra-inefficient speakers should be avoided. Both will have strengths but extremes are generally achieved with large compromises in other areas instead of an overall balance in performance.
Let me give a couple of examples of how a manufacturer can achieve high efficiency at the expense of distortion;
Long coil operating in short magnetic gap gives a low cost and highly efficient driver but it increases harmonic distortion as the voice coil operates outside the linear area of the short magnet gap. Also the heat dissapation is poor in these designs....so while they are highly sensitive they do not dissipate heat as well as a shorter coil in a longer magnet gap.
Very light rigid cone diaphragms made from hard/stiff materials (magnesium,ceramic,polymers). These efficient rigid low mass cones have low internal damping and tend to have high Q resonances. This efficient choice of cone leads to higher harmonic distortion than more critically damped designs.