What is your take on high efficient speakers vs. low efficient speakers?

@johnnycamp5 , Then I guess you need more experience and I am not trying to be harsh. I really mean it. I went through life as an inexperience audiophile for decades. Then I got involved in the business directly and was exposed to hundreds of systems and I was responsible for designing at least 50 of them, all very high end for the time. I am also extremely inquisitive and structured. I AB equipment all the time and have learned to divorce my imagination from the process.

It is also quite possible to make the finest systems sound terrible. Very few of us have actually listened to a SOTA system and do not know how much performance is available and what it sounds like. 

@wolf_garcia 

I believe some horn speakers built today have gotten much better at imaging than horn speakers of the past, but if you're a fan of imaging, there are still a lot of horn speakers that don't image real well. I for one am a big fan of imaging and that is why I own Maggie 20.1s. Speaking of Maggies, which in my opinion should always be paired with a sub, can you imagine how little bass they would produce if they were high efficiency? Although there may be some planar speakers that are high efficiency, I can't think of any off the top of my head.

@mijostyn that is interesting…it’s the polar opposite of my experience 

@johnnycamp5 

This is the beauty of open discussion forums,  a broad expression of numerous listening experiences from a diverse group of music lovers/audiophiles. I’ve had the fortune of hearing quite a few electrostatic speaker based audio systems. Some were quite good.

however, if given a choice between that type of system compared to a high quality higher efficient speaker driven by good quality low power tubes, I’ll choose the latter every time. It is not a proclamation, my ears and taste  are not superior to another’s. It is just simply after many years and much exposure to various systems, I just know what suits me best and sounds best to me.

On the other hand I can easily understand why electrostatic speakers and big transistor amplifiers would have enormous appeal to another listener. This is an extremely personal endeavor without question. The vast spectrum of choice in High End audio is precisely what makes it so special.

Charles

@phusis wrote:

"The EV Constant Directivity horns (HP9040 + DH1A) on my EV main speakers, by virtue of not narrowing the HF response on-axis, should require equalization in its upper band above some 3kHz, at least for their intended cinema use, but surprisingly we’ve only found it necessary and most important to apply some notches and a peak suppression via a Xilica DSP (active config.)... What’s your assessment here?

The short answer is, I don’t know.

Perhaps the crossover filtering is providing the equalization without obviously using a dedicated EQ circuit, by cutting the lows instead of boosting the highs. Perhaps EQ is being applied somewhere without you knowing about it. Perhaps your compression drivers have signifcantly better frequency response than the published curve; I have found that to sometimes be the case, the manufacturer apparently having made unannounced improvements in the frequency response... but usually not to that extent. I don’t see an impedance curve online, perhaps there is an amplifier interaction with the impedance curve which results in a rising top end with your amp, or which resulted in a drooping top-end when the published curve was measured.

That being said, the published unequalized curve for that horn/compression driver combination looks right to me. It looks like the curves I get with large-format compression drivers on constant-directivity horns.

All of the above speculative explanations are unlikely, perhaps even highly unlikely, which brings me back around to "I don’t know".

Sorry about that!

Duke

Should what type of music you listen to be included in the opinions?  Would light, airy, lit from within sound be desired by people who listen to chamber music, classical in general and softer jazz?   Would rock, pop and harder jazz listeners prefer a different sound?  I don't know, but it seems like a possibility.