What is your take on high efficient speakers vs. low efficient speakers?

^^ Yes. The difference between sensitivity and efficiency specs is poorly understood. You have to do math to convert from one to the other unless the speaker impedance is 8 Ohms.

What a thread...

Is a speaker with 88db sensitivity at 8 ohms or an 88db sensitivity at 4 ohms more "efficient"?

Having listened to gear for 20 years and owned a variety of equipment, I tend to associate higher sensitivity with a brighter sound. I lean to lower-sensitivity speakers in general.

@smoothtech 

If the loudspeaker has a different nominal impedance than the volts needed to achieve a watt also changes. Some manufacturers calibrate their one watt to the different impedances. Other manufacturers stick with 2.83 volts regardless of impedance. This is why we need to be careful about reading specifications.

If we have a 4 ohm cabinet then 2.83 volts is actually 2 watts. As we have doubled the power the loudspeaker sensitivity will appear 3dB louder.

Is this fair?

Imagine that you have two loudspeakers. Both loudspeakers have a sensitivity of 100dB referenced to 2.83v at 8 ohms at 1 meter. Your black loudspeaker is an 8 ohm box and your white loudspeaker is a 4 ohm box. You put them both on a separate channel off the same amplifier and play some music. You hear that your white speaker is twice as loud. Should both these speakers have the same sensitivity in the spec?
We would argue that referencing to 2.83v is more honest than specifying a nominal 1w/1m. It makes it clearer what your input signal is.

Quick Reference

Please use the table below as a quick reference to help you compare sensitivity measurements calibrated to different values.

Some members seem to advocate whether high efficiency speakers are better or not.  Sonics is my priority not speaker efficiency.  I only address speaker efficiency if it is required/driven by a sonic goal- wanting to hear flea watt 300b tube amp magic which would necessitate a very efficient speaker.  

In my experience, each pair of speakers that isn't driven easily by 30 Watt amplifier - sounds too compressed to me.

And it easy to explain. When you put dozens watts on speakers voice coil - it overheats that leads to very sever and clearly listened compression.