@bobbydd wrote:
I’m not referring to maximum loudness or volume, rather that the music sounds less reproduced and more that the instrumentation and vocals are more real sounding through higher sensitivity speakers.
Is this a real phenomenon? Or is it more the particular gear I’ve experienced?
Oddly it’s rare to read such fine expressions uttered here, what sounds "less reproduced." It says a lot without stepping into the realm of pretending what’s heard is a facsimile of a real, live acoustic event, and yet it’s at the heart at what can be more readily offered with the attainment of certain physical attributes of a speaker, of which dynamic capabilities are a core aspect and intricately linked to both high sensitivity and prodigious air radiation area.
It’s also about how one assesses and is habitually exposed to ’dynamics;’ I’ve heard quite a few low eff. speakers that, on the face of it, sounded rather dynamic, but when compared to larger and more dynamically capable speakers (because such, factually, there are) it becomes obvious that the latter is somewhat more relaxed yet visceral, effortless and "liquid" sounding in its dynamic portrayal, which to me can be condensed into a more singular impression as a "less reproduced" presentation.
I’ll concede to poster @mijostyn’s findings on at least very large, high-passed (and properly subs augmented) ESL’s that can be dynamically astute, but they also have plenty of displacement to yield while being transiently excellent (with narrow dispersion) - a powerful combo on top of being a crossover-less speaker plane. I do believe the Soundlab’s aren’t that inefficient but rather in the 90dB range? So hardly a typical representative of a low eff., direct radiating speaker - of limited size, no less.