Speaker sensitivity vs SQ


My first thread at AG.

Millercarbon continues to bleat on about the benefits of high sensitivity speakers in not requiring big amplifier watts.
After all, it's true big amplifiers cost big money.  If there were no other factors, he would of course be quite right.

So there must be other factors.  Why don't all speaker manufacturers build exclusively high sensitivity speakers?
In a simple world it ought to be a no-brainer for them to maximise their sales revenue by appealing to a wider market.

But many don't.  And in their specs most are prepared to over-estimate the sensitivity of their speakers, by up to 3-4dB in many cases, in order to encourage purchasers.  Why do they do it?

There must be a problem.  The one that comes to mind is sound quality.  It may be that high sensitivity speakers have inherently poorer sound quality than low sensitivity speakers.  It may be they are more difficult to engineer for high SQ.  There may be aspects of SQ they don't do well.

So what is it please?

128x128clearthinker

Showing 2 responses by glupson

"A voice coil fan!! Gotta run patent it!"

Not exactly that, but this is another voice coil with a rotating device...

Rotary woofer - Wikipedia
I'd go with mahgister.

AR 18s speakers (88dB) driven by a Rotel RA-414 amplifier (35W) can rock the place with 50-60 people whole night long and like that every weekend for years.

How much easier to drive you need them to be? I am sure there are armchair theories, but in real-use practice that is all one may need.

Skipping humongous speakers (Moabs anyone?) leaves more space to cram another few people in the room.