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

@mijostyn @charles1dad 

Absolutely!

Its why I said IME…

• Its why I said IME…

👍

@phusis wrote: 

The EV horns of mine both have a diffraction slot and sharp edges at the mouth area, and so may set the alarms ringing in many a horn-audiophiles’ head, but they actually sound very smooth after being properly implemented with mentioned DSP filter-actions above.

Good phrase - "alarms ringing" since that's what the sharp edges cause worry of - ringing. I get the impression from my listening that the ringing back to the throat is generally fast enough that it doesn't cause the kinds of issues that I thought - peaky, ear piercing response types of sounds, although perhaps it can if the horn is big enough. I've heard some of the really big diffraction horns bothered people in the past but it could be they just weren't well equalized. So I think I agree with you that properly equalized diffraction throat horns can still sound quite smooth and natural, although some imaging and detail might be obscured. The better high frequency dispersion may be more than worth it in many scenarios. 

I always thought it was slots or discontinuities in the THROAT of a horn that could often cause a “spitty” or sibilant sound compared to an identical horn with a smooth throat…

@johnk wrote:

I prefer high efficiency but I don’t undersize my systems so I get bass into the 20-30hz range on most systems. I find higher eff designs to have a more realistic sound quality if done right. But many are too compromised in size. But sadly so are most of the loudspeakers offered today. Shipping costs and material costs all lead to smaller and smaller designs. I get 1 tear in my eye at audio shops it’s all too small.

My sentiment exactly!

Also, per the comments above regarding horn speakers not imaging, my JBL hybrid horn speakers image well. The JBLs have an efficiency of 2.7% they were manufactured in 1981. Happy imaging! 😎

Mike