4 and 8 ohm taps. I am using the 8 ohm taps for both speakers!
Thanks for that site!
15 ohm speakers yea or nay?
I just bought Falcon speakers that are 15 ohms. I have Harbeths that are 6 ohms. Both have the same sensitivity rating of 83db. I am using both with the same tube amps.
What has me scratchin’ my head is that the Falcons are much louder with the volume set the same on my preamp.
Any opinions on why a 15 ohm speaker would be that much different than a 6 ohm speaker with the same sensitivity specs?
THX
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- 30 posts total
Efficiency and sensitivity are not the same. My speakers are JBL 4435 monitors and have a sensitivity of 96 dB SPL @ 1 watt @ 2 meters @ 8 Ohm and have an efficiency of 2.7%. See the JBL manual below specifications section, last page. As for the difference between sensitivity and efficiency see the link below JBL technical note first page section C. All three specifications, impedance, sensitivity and efficiency are important and must be looked at together to better understand their meaning and correlation to what you hear. Also, amplifiers produce more distortion in lower impedances then higher impedances. Hope that helps. 😎 Mike http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/specs/pro-speakers/1984-4430-35.htm http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/reference/notes/tech1-3a.htm http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-efficiency.htm @rodman99999 +2. Great article. |
I would say Yea. Because the only speaker that I know that has 15ohm and 83db spl ratings with the Falcon name attached is their Rogers LS 3/5a speakers. After 40 years and many speakers have come and gone, I still love Rogers. Now that you mention. I do switch between 8ohm Quads with 86ish?db spl and the Rogers. I don't hear any significant loudness between them with the same volume setting on the preamp. However, I did hear a hear a level difference when I went from a tube amp using the 16 ohm tap to the SS Spectral amp I'm using now. I just figured it was the differing input sensitivity of the amps. Why? I don't know. I just listen to the music. I do use the Quads for large orchestral. The Rogers for near field critical listening, smaller quintets, jazz or solo recordings. |
If the Falcon speaker is their LS 3/5a, it has a minimum impedance of just over 7 ohms and Hi Fi News rated it as an 8ohm design. Also, it has a big peak in frequency response over 10k. Taking those aspects together, it might sound louder, partly through being optimally matched to the transformer tap and partly subjectively. It would be interesting to put an SPL meter on both speakers and see what it reads. |
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