efficiency- hope i spelt that wright.


after my last thread, I started thinking about speaker efficiency, my speakers are rated at 87 db's which i think are pretty inefficent,so I am thinking I need a bigger amp to drive them, is this true? now lets say i enjoyed klipsch (which I do not) they are very efficient so would a low wattage amp perform better for this speaker vs. a high waggage amp? Is a guy wasting his money buying inefficient speakers? my thought are the lower the wattage the cheaper the amp so if you could match them up with really efficient speakers you could have a gem, any thoughts on this question are something i will truly enjoy reading. thanks

mike
magnus89

Showing 2 responses by shadorne

Is a guy wasting his money buying inefficient speakers?

No. There is a lot more to speakers than this. Distortion. Dispersion. Driver integration. Compression. I have heard 83 db sensitivity speakers that play much louder than 91 db sensitivity speakers even if you drive the 91 db speakers with the same powerful amp that the 83 db speakers demand....a lot depends on Xmax and thermal compression. Many high sensitivity speakers with very light weight cones and long voice coils in small magnetic gaps (aka cheap drivers) will distort and compress very quickly.
I agree with Elvick...quality first, however, if you do go with a mere 7 watts then you definitely need a highly efficient speaker...an 83 db speaker will be severely restricted if driven by 7 watts....in that case you might consider horns as an excellent match.