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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
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,408 posts
 

Erik, guess you don't like Maggies, Apogees, Infinity IRS, or Wilson WAMM?---Eric.

erik_squires OP
15,640 posts
 

Hey @Bdp24

Well, not saying I don’t l9ike them, ribbon speakers have a reason why they are so low, and they have a pay-off that’s worth it.

Interesting that you bring up the Infinity speakers. Not sure about the IRS, but there were lesser models with crossover designs we’d now consider "naive" at best. You can buy crossover upgrades which maintain the tonal balance while raising up the minimum impedance.

I analyzed a pair of Focal 918 speakers and really had a tough time believing the crossover design was NOT deliberately meant to make it hard to drive. Some caps and resistors in the woofer section dropped the impedance to unnecessarily low values below 100 Hz which could easily have been avoided.

In the case of the Infinity speakers I’m thinking of, they were designed in an era when we lacked the simulation tools we have now, it could have been they got to the right sound and then didn’t want to also optimize to avoid the low impedance.

erik_squires OP
15,640 posts
 

I guess I’m unhappy with speakers being hard to drive... just because they are hard to drive. 😁

And less happy about anyone idolizing that as a feature.

 

OK, thinking about this this is less about the gear and more about the awe created by hard to drive speakers.  Like we somehow want to make the speakers happy because they are so demanding.  Maybe we should get speakers that are happy with any amplifier instead??

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