A question of sensitivity...

I've been listening a few makes of high-sensitivity speakers in anticipation of the arrival of a cute little 2A3 driven, 3.5watt amplifier I ordered, and I've noticed a couple of things that I wanted to clarify with the more knowledgeable sifus and brothers and sisters here.

It seems that for example, a 95db speaker with NO crossover, is more sensitive than a similarly rated speaker WITH a crossover...

I say this as the single-driver examples I've subjected my ears to have needed less gain on the volume knob from the same amp, vs something with a crossover, such as my own 95db vintage Klipsch T-3000s...

Am I going gaga?...

All Crossovers definitely have some losses.

Any passive component in the signal path will always sap some of the power. Its only normal and expected.

In fact, speakers themselves are quite a lossy energy transfer device by nature.

Just remember that high efficiency in a speaker system is just one of the design parameters. There are also other key factors like distortion, heat dissipation, sonic dispersion, Energy-storage/smearing, etc etc that makes up a well designed speaker.

Thanks mugenfoo.

What are your thoughts on single-driver vs multiples?

Not wanting to re-open wounds or arguments from the SET/speaker thread... but I would like to see if anyone here is running flea-muscle amps and what their set-up might be like....

just to add on...
90dB of perceived loudness is approx 0.001Watts of power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_power#Table:_Sound_power_and_sound_power_level_of_some_sound_sources


For eg, if am Amp is supplying 1Watt (or more) of electrical power and u happen to get 90dB loudness of sound (which is approx 0.001 Watts of sonic power), the remaining 99.9% of power is loss as heat in the components (crossovers, voice coils, etc...) and in mechanical vibration of the speaker cone, cabinets and etc.

As for the High power amp with low efficiency speaker vs flea power amp & high efficiency speaker... lets just say that for Home audio applications, the High-end frontiers always tend towards the big power amps, not because high end speakers are so terribly inefficient, but because with the added power, there is much more CONTROL and ACCURACY vs. a flea-powered amp hooked up to ultra-efficient speakers.

The Flea powered Amp with Ultra Efficient (usually Horn) speakers are indeed a curiosity and are preferred by some. But as in the old saying.... "There is no replacement for Displacement". Watts matter here.

And the design compromise is that when speaker mfgs need to make a speaker ultra super efficient, they have to cut back on other design traits like Accuracy, Damping characteristics ,power handling, etc.

So a balanced approach is the key here. Both in Amp and speaker design and in just about anything else also.

JediSavant wrote:It seems that for example, a 95db speaker with NO crossover, is more sensitive than a similarly rated speaker WITH a crossover...
...

Hi,

There is a simple explanation for this.

Single driver crossoverless tend to sound 'louder' so to speak due to the fact that most, if not all of these type of breed, are not flat in frequency response. They usually have a rising frequency response. So the mids and highs dB are rising higher than the mid bass. With the ears being most sensitive to the midrange, hence the single driver sounds louder. In actual, the sound is peaky...

I have a friend in Penang who went through a lot work to tame his Fostex peak via cone treatment and also installing a center phase plug.



cheers.