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

yes low impedance in upper registers is nothing to worry about but tuning impedance curve in the lower registers to design a speakers desired characteristic. I am thinking Wilson speakers would be a good example some Wilson’s are known for having great slam in the lower registers, does this make sense or am I completely off base here?

@jeffrey75 I don’t think Wilson is doing what you’re suggesting, if that’s what you mean by ’off base’.

Take ATC speaker/driver as an example, if one desires a good low frequency extension out of a small-to-medium sealed enclosure (which I prefer) design speaker with a given size of driver, efficiency has to be sacrificed.

@lanx0003 While this is certainly true, what about large multi-driver full range speakers that are really hard to drive? They don’t get the Murphy that a smaller speaker does for low efficiency.

I might see this a bit differently because our ears hear on a logarithmic curve. I figure if 100 Watts won’t do the job, 200 or 400 Watts won’t either because 2 or 4x more power isn’t that much louder- 3 or 6dB. To get to a perceived ’twice as loud’ its generally accepted that you need 10x more power. In radio parlance this is known as ’gold plated deciBels’; 1000Watts, I think we can all agree, simply isn’t practical.

Fortunately for we humans, distortion of lower frequencies isn’t as audible/objectionable to our ear/brain mechanism as is distortion of higher frequencies. Right, Ralph? Since the beginning of hi-fi and continuing to this day, woofers commonly produce 10% (and higher) harmonic distortion. If a tweeter produced that much distortion it would be unlistenable.

If only @kenjit would put into production one of his perfect loudspeaker designs. The selfish sob is keeping them all to himself.

@bdp24.... What if a few of us got together to try to design a speaker, we all liked.......This is the thing, and it is ok. We each like what we like, without need to defend why. Unfortunately, many are still searching for that " perfect sound forever ". And Eric, I meant zero offense. We all just need to lighten up a little. My best, always, MrD..

@atmasphere thank you, speakers designers can flatten out higher impedance in 4 Ohm speakers not sure how I got it mixed up.

Geez @mrdecibel, my post above (or at least it’s last sentence) WAS offered in the spirit of lightening up. Too subtle?

I can't believe I am asking this question: Do you actually take @kenjit seriously?!