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We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

Sorry I know this is a bit of a rant, but come on people!!

Too many audiophiles find speakers which are hard to drive and... stick with them!

We need to reject hard-to-drive speakers as being Hi-Fi. Too many of us want our speakers to be as demanding as we are with a glass of wine. "Oh, this speaker sounds great with any amplifier, but this one needs amps that weigh more than my car, so these speakers MUST sound better..."

Speakers which may be discerning of amplifier current delivery are not necessarily any good at all at playing actual music. 

That is all.

erik_squires
perkri
908 posts
 

I’ve generally been keen on having speakers that are higher sensitivity.

Recently, I built a pair of Seas coax speakers. 4 ohm, 80dB efficient. 
Driving them with a 30w class A amp wit( a large power supply 

Not where my sonic interests are - or so I thought.

These things sound amazing! 
 

Don’t get me wrong. I very much want to build a 15” 100dB coax set up in a coffin sized box, drive them with a SET. But, that’s not an option at the moment. And these low sensitivity speakers have shown me just how good inefficient speakers can sound when powered accordingly.

Im less reluctant to consider difficult speakers after listening to these for the past several months.

wturkey's avatar
wturkey
780 posts
 

@bdp24 is spot on!

wolf_garcia
6,711 posts
 

There are plenty of people enjoying their "hard to drive" speakers likely with no idea they’re hard to drive. They somehow managed to buy an amp that works (i.e. just about any decent amp)...for shame! Don’t they sit through endless egomaniac John DeVore youtube videos? (and maybe pay through the nose for a plywood box with 2 drivers because, hey man, it's 10 ohms) Or read every tedious tech review attached to Stereophile reviews? You mean they just sit there and enjoy music and have NO IDEA their speakers are horribly flawed? Wow man...what a shame...

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,831 posts
 

@wolf-garcia: Well whatta ya know, someone else who considers John DeVore a smug, sanctimonious kinda guy! I haven’t heard any of his speakers (which may sound great; Art Dudley, Ken Micallef, and Steve Guttenberg certainly thought/think so), but they sure don’t appear to be priced according to the industry-standard price-of-parts X 7. I guess DeVore considers his time much more valuable than that of mere mortals.

overthemoon
425 posts
 

@bdp24 I'm appreciating your comments and I've heard DeVore speakers and the SuperNines sounded awesome.  There are so many excellent speakers available, so when I saw the price the speakers didn't make there way into my home.

To be fair there's a lot of excellent audio equipment my wallet has eliminated from consideration...

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