You can also trade truth for bullshit, that's the trade off. Unless you are living in some rural parts of outer Puboosia and Borat is your president (Hell at this point I'd prefer Borat) the AC power in your sockets do not need "cleaned" and all non defective audio cables sound identical. But you can trade off that truth for BS, that's the trade off...
Although 3db is twice the acoustical energy, it takes 10db for our brain to perceive it as twice as loud, our brains are not linear in our perception of sound loudness.
Little known fact: Generally yes, however the perception is frequency dependent to a large degree, look closely at the curves and you will notice you need a lot less, about 4dB in fact, to double the perceived loudness in the low frequency range for example.
@@paulb4661 Fletcher Munson curve. Old radios had tonal compensation built in that would change the tonal curve as the volume went up. It was loudness compensation, but no one called it that back then. I agree with you, thank you for the added data.
@@zulumax1 On a side note, I think this better than expected intensity discrimination explains the ubiquity of vented enclosures on the market. The real lows are missing, as the characteristic drops like a stone below tuning frequency even with room gain accounted for, with the added "benefit" of excessive excursion, I might add. Post impulse ringing and group delay are also inferior to sealed equivalents with reflected mids and chuffing noises often echoing from the vents and yet that little bit of extra "boom" above the tuning frequency goes a long way. This imbalance essentially, is often exacerbated by placing speakers in close proximity to every possible room boundary - corners, with the resulting infamous "one-note" reproduction. Then again, many commercial speaker enclosures are so poorly built, the actual resonating walls "complement" sound output to such a significant degree, even applying the term Hi-Fi loosely is a misnomer anyway.
@@paulb4661 Could not agree more. Ports do much damage to the sound. There is also port harmonics at multiples of the tuned frequency and the fact that other midrange sounds exit out of the port and become latent and out of phase with the front wave. Only port designed I like is the Karlson design which is an exponentially opening exit to the port. Speakers are room energizers, placement, reflections, boundaries, objects in the room resonating. It is all futile but we keep listening anyways. I am experimenting with open baffle single driver design. Kind of a dipole flat baffle with a side wing. Speakers, rooms, and microphones do the most damage to the sound.
I love Paul, by far the very best teacher : clarity, explanations, audio, video, tutorials, short, effective to the point with not too much info & just the right amount of info & never condescending...always 👍👍 Looking 👀👂🔊🔜
This is the first time I got an explanation why bookshelf speakers have a lower impedance. About 25 years ago I bought a pair of kef reference one speakers, they were 90 db at 8 ohm. My amplifier was a 50 watts at 8 ohm. The amp I bought was half the price of the price I payed for my speakers. I don’t play a high volume and that worked fantastic. I play all sorts of music going from renaissance vocal music to Led Zeppelin and the music sounded always fantastic and realistic. Went to classical performances as to rock performances. Now I’m playing with an Arcam surround receiver with great power and a set of Audio Physic Temp speakers who needs lots of power. When my wife and I bought a studio not to small were we are staying regular and were we going to live in a few years. I searched for a set of bookshelf speakers and found out those speakers needs a very expensive amplifier with lots of power and price of the amp was far much expensive than the speakers and I didn’t understood why. With video I got the explanation. Thank you very much. At the end I bought an marantz streaming receiver with 60 watts at 8 ohm and 80 watts at 4 ohm and a pair of speakers from Amphion Argon 1. They have the same price as my amp. And they are good match. Greetings from Belgium Ludo
Thanks Paul. I think I got the essence of it. I can probably explained again.... without all the numbers on dB, Watt, Sqr ft and throw a lot of "believe me" in between sentences
Audiophile addiction is a euphoric journey! Just when I though I had a pretty good understanding of how something works, I then get slapped with captivating information such as this. Paul's the best. Thanks for bringing joy and a big smile into my stressful life, as well as to your audiophile community. Merry Christmas 🎄
I always feel I’m kneeling at the feet of the master! Thanks again for another brilliant video. Small speakers with bass means inefficient. So simple when Paul explains it.
Learning new things every time I watch another video. Even if the subject has been covered in previous ones. I appreciate you explaining them different. Thanks Paul! Need more talks with Darin on amp and preamp designs. Be cool if he could show on a circuit schematic or the spice program the designs and what he is aiming for and describing. Perhaps this is too in depth. It would be fun. Maybe bring out the portable whiteboard?
Hi Poul Thanks again for the tech talk. They do make medium efficient speakers with low fs. I just bought a pair of 10” woofers with a fs. At 18Hz and a efficient of 89dw Yes they were ...
Thanks for this good question and great explanation! With (bookshelf) speakers getting smaller and powerful amps cheaper, one can still achieve great sound without the focus on sensitivity. The Mica RB45 for example is a small speaker with rather low sensitivity but with a big sound and low end. Downside of that type of configuration is you really need to drive the speakers and play rather loud to make them sound right. High sensitivity speakers tend to sound already great at lower volume/less db's. So if you are a quiet evening/midnight listener a higher sensitivity speaker would be the better choice. Or an actieve DSP controlled speaker which "corrects" driver behavior over the whole volume range.
Again, I clearly understand what high-efficiency speakers are missing and why big speakers( those are mentioned in the video) are big. lol.Thank you so much, Paul.
Most informative video ever. All are informative but this one is tops. It explains why my 462 Dayton Audio 9inch tall speakers with 4inch woofer AMT tweeter 84 sensitivity has such great bass. Thank you sir.
I have been wondering about this forever. You find efficient and less efficient speakers in the market. Both can be inexpensive to very expensive. And yet the difference in terms of what can drive them is dramatic. I could never wrap my head around why everybody didn’t make only efficient ones--Now I know. Thank you
Great video. My brother has an old set of Altec Lancing Valencia speakers. Super efficient but you are completely right. Not a whole lot of bass at all. They sound great though.
Great explanation thank you. I bought a pair of Hertz for my front doors in my truck for use with the anemic factory radio because they had the highest sensitivity I could find at 93. I also noticed the woofer cone construction of paper was unique compared to other options and didn’t understand why until now. I also didn’t understand the relationship to bass response. While tuning my system my heart was telling me the front crossover should be set to HPF and close to 80, but my ears were telling me between 100-150 sounded more balanced with my sub set at closer to 110-120 instead of 70-80ish (both slopes 12db).
good question, GREAT answer. I've been an audio enthusiast for decades and didn't know the true size factor. 8X the volume says uh, volumes about why efficiency has been 'traded down'. Much easier to blend a sub with a 89-90dB speaker that reaches down to a real 40Hz or so than a 93dB+ speaker which only goes down to a higher useable range due to box size limitations. I'll take that tradeoff every time with all the amp power we have on hand nowadays. Excellent and simple explanation Paul. 128K +1 subscribers
Dear Paul, sorry for my formerly not so friendly comment! In the meantime I had the pleasure of listening to a couple of your videos and certainly you know about all of the details. I guess it is just difficult to bring it all up in those 6 min casts. In fact you regained all of my sympathy when I took note that you are a high efficiency addict (like me). In particular I like your statement (quote just alike..) : "take a high efficiency system and try to optimize it with the least possible compromise...." That is EXACTLY my approach in speaker building!!!
As a speaker designer there's some considerations that I always make the same decisions with; homes here in europe are getting smaller and smaller, for more and more money, so if I go by hoffman's iron law of "bass response, small box, sensitivity; pick 2", then I'm ALWAYS going to choose small box, and with how most modern music is recorded and the reluctance and difficulty adding bass through subwoofers, I'm probably also going to choose bass response. The other reason I'm going to discount sensitivity is how electrically noisy home environments can be these days, and how infrequently people use decent power conditioning, a high sensitivity tweeter is going to expose your noise floor MUCH faster than a low sensitivity design, if I can improve other aspects of the speaker and reduce that noise floor, I'm going to do it. I do risk alienating the old-school crowd in my design approaches, but I hope that hi-fi will come back into fashion with the younger crowd and I believe my designs are much more orientated to their needs.
@@mctapia12 I've always got some sort of project on the go, the pair I'm just finishing up is a 2 way 14 litre bookshelf using ultra affordable components and crossover duties done by Cabinet design rather than electronically. I've managed to get them to play 35hz-20khz +\- 3db
Hi Paul, just an additional point. a higher efficiency speaker hooked up to an amplifier at the same volume setting almost always soundsbetter unless it is driven into high distortion or worse. As per Fletcher and Munson and their successors, our ears have less sensitivity at the frequency extremes than in the middle. So, the higher volume speaker will sound better, all other things being equal and, sometimes, even when they are not. So it is always good to match volumes between speakers precisely before comparing them. A quick way to do this is to switch between the speakers using white or pink noise which can be found in many free apps and is well approximated by interstation hiss! Comparing speakers at different levels was a favorite trick of unscrupulous Hi-Fi dealers back in the day. Thanks again!
I have Capella CP-3000 that are 60 watt RMS, 4-8 Ohm, 85db sensitivity, 3-way speakers (Engineered by Bose) in the early 80s. They need a good amp, bought a Yamaha RX-V450 AV receiver and that did not cut it at all. Later I bought a Behringer iNuke NU1000DSP amplifier to drive my transducers that I have on my racing simulation chair/rig, and I hooked up the speakers to that. I was blown away by the audio quality I got from them once properly driven. Especially the bass got so nice, tight and correct sounding. Crappy thing is that the PA amp has a fan in it that makes a lot of noise. Nothing to worry about on stage, but in the livingroom it's a no go.
I am using a pair of JBL LX2005. The sensitivity is 91dB, Frequency Response: 35Hz to 22kHz, Recommended Amplifier: 10 to 250W and they sound great coupled with my valve amp build in the 1960's. I don't think I would get the enjoyment with the valve amp if they were not as sensitive. PS love the videos Paul and I have learned a lot, thanks.
great question, perfect answer without any high end voodoo. Maybe what could be added: Smaller, low efficiency woofer have more problems with power compression due to high power input. Huge excursion of woofer causes several distortions like more doppler effect and the nonlinearity of the mass-spring-system.
"Efficiency" is not JUST a matter of (moving) mass, it's also (among yet other factors) a matter of effective coupling of the driver diaphragm to the air, and that relates to effective piston (or horn mouth) area. A larger piston has greater air resistance and relatively less inefficient and turbulent "side-spill" (due to a higher ratio of area to circumference), therefore it is more effective at transducing mechanical motion to acoustical energy. You could say it has more traction to the room; another analogy would be a high-bypass turbojet engine. Also its inherently higher directionality increases its "throw", which does not increase overall efficiency but does increase its on-axis sensitivity. All else equal, a larger driver area gives a more dynamic listening experience... within its coverage area.
Engineering work arounds to that too. TAD Pioneer electronics designed a dual voice coil woofer with a special low mass ceramic cone. The second voice coil starts passing energy by the crossover to keep the bass roll off flat by dipping the impedance lower to 6 ohms under 50hz or so.
May very well just described the problem im having with my speakers. The manufacturer wanted a very high efficient loudspeaker, but wanted to focus on maintaining the bass approx 30hz just like was mentioned. Then also design the cabinet to not take up much floor space. They ended up going with a pair of 6in subwoofers in each cabinet for the low end, 5in midbass for the midbass plus some of the midrange. The cone material is very thin and light weight. So Im almost certain that what im hearing is "cone cry". While listening to bass heavy music at high volume. The only reason I desided to purchase the loudspeaker was because of how much bass and full range sound they put out. They do 30hz well and are quick and punchy. Bass string solos sound amazing. But just like what was also mentioned. Using a shorter voice coil to reduce the weight. Even though they can take some power. Can't really take advantage of it since they really do start to lose linearity. I used to believe that they were the absolute best you can get for the money. Even though they still sound impressive for what you get at that price. Until after several critical listening sessions I noticed what was described. Had no idea what was wrong with them. Now I know. Thanks!
Another interesting video. Mid-80's I came across a pair of Lowther Accousta Speakers at a second-hand shop, can remember cranking up the volume and they would take all the different genres that were thrown at them with an amazing deep bass. Moving forward and into marriage, size became a problem so we parted company - isn't the bass response also connected with cabinet design and how the rear of the speaker is ported?
This is why I love audio as a hobby. Nothing’s perfect nothings every really done DONE always room for improvement. And you can enjoy it pretty much 24 hours a day in one form or another. I’m into both car and home audio if I had a boat I’d be into boat audio as well 😎
Hi Paul, 8 times the volume probably is twice the hight, width and dept, 2 x 2 x 2 = 8? Still a lot bigger for one octave, but it won't fill the whole room. Thanks for all the explaining.
I'm using a pair of 1984 Klipsch Cornwalls (102 dB speaker sensitivity) connected to a modern ss amp, 1980's tube preamp, and analog (turntable) and digital sources (cd player, DAC, music streamer). And with regards to bass, the speakers produce a really great bass response. True, the speakers are very big but I love their look.
I‘ve had some klipsch rf7 mk2 and they were big. The bass was loud but not deep and not precise. It‘s a party, rock, metal speaker but compared to my actual b&w 804 d3 it‘s a night and day difference in all aspects, not only the bass.
Yes. If the magnet is not magnetized (I guess it wouldn't be a magnet then) the efficiency goes to nothing. On the other hand, it doesn't work quite as linearly as one might think. The BL "constant' is the magnetic field density multiplied by the effective length of the voice coil in the magnetic gap and it determines the force exerted by the motor per unit of current. So, you would think that twice the BL would give you twice as much everything. However, there is a magnetic damping force created by the back EMF = BL*u where u is the velocity, that counters this. A great piece of freeware is Unibox for Excel. It is a good enclosure design tool and it allows you to play with these things. If you have an interest, and a few hours to kill, it is pretty fun. Cheers!
I've noticed as well with Horn speakers. not to mention any brands but the efficiency comes from the horn which to me as about 6 db higher then the woofer. not something i particularity care for.
I know some speaker cabinets (2 stereo and 1 bass( that can hit 118 dB SPL at 1 meter at 1 watt. My old Sunn 2x15 front=facing rear-loaded folded horn that could blast a theater with 100 watts. However, if you had an acoustic labyrinth speaker with a 6" woofer, it would probably sound better for pipe organ or electronic music. The Sunn cabinet was made to compete with guitar stacks, but the bass only goes down to about 40 Hz, so you're mainly hearing the harmonics. if you want to play a 32 Hx pipe organ note, you wound need a design that sacrifices efficiency for very deep bass. Very deep Nass costs a lot in power. Take a look sometime at the baddest pipe of.a big pipe organ, and you can get an idea of how long the wavelength is that you are trying to reproduce. From my understanding, the acoustic labyrinth speaker (with a very long rear port) can actually have a speaker play below its resonant frequency. I haven't tried it, but I've read about it. Now that I've switched from a 4 string bass going down to E. I have an extra string that goes down to the B below the E. It makes me more aware of the deep bass issue. It's a trade off.
This is great. Thanks Paul 👍 What I seem to notice also is that higher sensitivity speakers become loud quickly so it’s harder to control the volume. Goes too low then goes too high etc. Impedance also seems to play a factor? This goes back to the car stereo days but my buddy had a certain amp and system that was very sensitive to volume. There was no circular knob control either. It was a slide bar type deck. So when you pushed the lever up even slightly it would easily start to distort. One of the amps also went out. Realized he was running each channel at 2 ohms which was not ideal for this particular amp. He had 4 8 in subs each rated at 4 ohms. We didn’t pay much attention to sensitivity. I re-wired into series vs parallel and everything was much better. Amp still had enough power to drive the 4 subs. The volume was much more easy to control also. Does distortion factor into the speaker sensitivity also? Meaning the more efficient the speaker the more likely noise can be picked up?
Hey Paul thanks for your videos. I have a couple dumb questions I hope you can answer. When you bridge two channels to one speaker does it actually mix the stereo signal to get mono or do you only get signal from one channel with more power? Second question is if you had a two channel amp and two speakers in the same box like say a portable radio. Is there an advantage one way or another to wire one channel to each speaker (stereo) or wire them in series then bridged to the amp to get (mono)? I'm just wondering if there is really an advantage to stereo when the speakers are right next to each other or if given them the exact same signal will produce a louder or better quality sound... Thanks
I would like to add also that high efficiency speakers are revealing and can give a hint of floor noise, that's one of the trade-offs also pending on equipment
That really was a great question... My front speakers are 89 db sensitivity and my new center is 96 db, I sent back my Elac because it sounded "muddy" but it had a sensitivity of 85db. Today I will test the new center (Klipsch RP450c) which is a "2.5" way speaker with a claimed sensitivity of 96db and see how it sounds.... I am starting to wonder about setting the crossover at 70 hz for LCR instead of L+R at 50 hz and the center at 70?
Interesting topic. I am currently tinkering around on hub dynamo powered stereo system for bicycle (with a buffer batterie of course). The electric part (dynamo , small mppt solar charger to get the max out of the dynamo, a nimh battery and a small class d amp with 12W) works much better than expected but the speaker design is hard. With the 5th prototype (aiming for the most boom for the watt) i now have a weird looking 6 liter ported speaker on both sides of my front wheel and it only starts to sound decent. And even if most of the people i ask find the sound quite good, i want to build something that sounds better than a 90's portable cassette stereo. PS i can send you a picture if you want to have a laugh
Hi Paul, That was an interesting topic there, thanks for sharing your insight ! I have a question- What about Klipsch Rf7iii ( i own a pair and the bass is wow ) they are rated at 100DB sensitive and the frequency response starts from 20 hz. They have 2 10 inch woofers per box:) . This is contradicting with your statement. Can you please explain?
Paul's example was simply a "for example". He wasn't referring to any specific actual speaker. Your Klipshes are spec'd as -3dB at 32Hz. For extreme low frequencies, your room and speaker setup have a very large influence on how low they will go. If you have brick walls, your bass will be much stronger than if you live in a flimsy mobile home.
@@ThePentosin Yup. They are also "8 ohm compatible' which isn't a true 8 ohm load so maybe 6 ohm in reality? Klipsch's high sensitivity numbers is a marketing lie IMO. Who cares how sensitive a tweeter/horn is when its the woofers that count? Did you also get them on sale as their pricing is also a marketing gimmick.
What I would like to know is why JBL"s most popular studio monitor/home speaker woofers (circa 1970s) had very low resonant frequencies, super high Vas, and relatively low Qts which were later abandoned. Those attributes gave the speakers very powerful and punchy bass.
Love your answers. Let me ask this, Why are Klipsch speakers so efficient? I am about to purchase a pair of RP-600, do they not produce bass because they are so efficient?
Not a deep bass. No subsonic. I‘ve owned abpair of rf7 mk2. Great speakers but they could only get down to maybe 60 hz. I‘ve gor room modes at 30 hz. Never discovered it with the big, big klipsch.
Sedgefield. Sedge rhymes with hedge. A 15-watt Vox AC15C2 with 12” 100db celestion blue speakers WILL blow your socks off. Not much use for home hifi though. Good video 😎
DCM used labyrinths inside their boxes to move more bass using more efficient mid-bass drivers. The DCM Timeframe 600s have 92dB sensitivity and can go down to 30 hertz using a mid bass driver.
Efficiency is a trade off. The most efficient speakers are used for PA systems, but they also have to be able to handle huge amounts of heat from the hi wattage amps they use. Low efficiency speaker have have more damping. That helps when you have an impulse or quick beat of a bass drum, the damping makes the speaker stop ringing very quickly. Ringing, especially in the woofer , cause distortion of the low frequency audio signal. So a quick hit on the bass drum sounds boomy, and doesn’t stop ringing as fast. But they’re are speakers that do fairly well in the efficiency department and in the damping department. But they’re hard to find. This is the main reason that speaker builders are moving to smaller bass drivers. My old 12” were not anywhere as good as my 7” Focals.
Speakers can do better than the 84 and 85 db I am seeing. That is just ridiculous. But the huge box thing, I have JBL D130's as subwoofers. And they have had some verious modifications to the cones and suspensions over the years, all of which have an effect on their efficiency. If I had to guess it is possible they have about 1.5db lower than they are rated for from factory. But I also need to have them in some rather creatively designed boxes to get them to extend low enough to be satisfying. Mine are roughly 8 cubic feet in the main chamber and have a horn loaded port. They tucker out about 37-40hz or so and the boxes are absolutely huge, as the horn is almost the same volume as the back chamber. I also power them with a decent sized amp, though I don't really ever take them to their potential. My midhigh's are full range heavely modded 5" Fostex (at the moment) on about 8 watts of tube power.
Not necessarily. Improving the efficiency of a speaker system can actually enhance bass performance if done correctly. Efficient speaker designs can often produce cleaner and more accurate bass, as they can handle more power effectively, resulting in better control over low frequencies. However, it ultimately depends on the specific design choices made by the manufacturer and how they balance efficiency with other factors like bass response.
There are more and more speakers out there that are genuinely efficient and also are able to play bass. Some manufacturer's use separate amps for the woofers but there are some nice speakers that can play well with low wattage amps. My speakers are not bass shy... and 97.5 db. It is truly incredible the number of people that are into audio and audio solutions, and the range of products that make, these days.
@@chinmeysway they are Audionote AN/E's, which are designed to be placed near the wall and play into the sub bass with this placement... great with low power clas A amps...these speakers are less ideally suited for music which requires solid state bass slam
Thank you Paul for your continued, informative presentations. However, you failed at saying Klipsch, (O; and so much so that you slapped the JBL nametag onto a Klipsch product still being made some 73 years to this day! And yes, at 105 DB efficient, Paul delt with the bass issue by designing an EIGHT FOOT bass horn into a rather compact corner design to keep up with the big mid horn..............in 1946 !! Since the person writing in mentioned his Martin Logans, the ESL-9 Classic (in my system) are rated at 90 DB for those that are interested in the Masterpiece series e-stats being produced today.
Hi Paul, I would like to hear answer about overall sound quality. Does higher sensitivity loudspeaker will reproduce sound better than lower sensitivity loudspeaker? I mean vocals for example. Low frequency it is for subwoofer.
When i play a grand accord on a grand piano with fortissimo , it produces 115db/1m peak....if the speaker and amp cannot deliver the signal will be compressed, its called crest factor....a belgian audio constructor worked with vitavox s2 and klipschhorn or jbl 2245 bass , so minimal 96db/w ....
my Dad would tell all the time, 'if it were easy, everybody would be doing it'. Thanks Paul for your sharing. ; -))
"everything is a trade-off" and "law of diminishing returns" sums up my experience with audio gear.
Sums up life, really.
burn the heretic
I’d also add “the room and speaker positioning is 90%”
You can also trade truth for bullshit, that's the trade off. Unless you are living in some rural parts of outer Puboosia and Borat is your president (Hell at this point I'd prefer Borat) the AC power in your sockets do not need "cleaned" and all non defective audio cables sound identical. But you can trade off that truth for BS, that's the trade off...
Paul once again demonstrates his knowledge... i am neither an engineer nor an audiophile, yet i enjoy every single video.
I was literally JUST wondering this like 20 minutes ago. THANKS PAUL
TH-cam/google/internet thingie is reading our minds... it seems like it to me at times too! 😆
Although 3db is twice the acoustical energy, it takes 10db for our brain to perceive it as twice as loud, our brains are not linear in our perception of sound loudness.
Little known fact: Generally yes, however the perception is frequency dependent to a large degree, look closely at the curves and you will notice you need a lot less, about 4dB in fact, to double the perceived loudness in the low frequency range for example.
@@paulb4661 Fletcher Munson curve. Old radios had tonal compensation built in that would change the tonal curve as the volume went up. It was loudness compensation, but no one called it that back then. I agree with you, thank you for the added data.
@@zulumax1 On a side note, I think this better than expected intensity discrimination explains the ubiquity of vented enclosures on the market. The real lows are missing, as the characteristic drops like a stone below tuning frequency even with room gain accounted for, with the added "benefit" of excessive excursion, I might add. Post impulse ringing and group delay are also inferior to sealed equivalents with reflected mids and chuffing noises often echoing from the vents and yet that little bit of extra "boom" above the tuning frequency goes a long way. This imbalance essentially, is often exacerbated by placing speakers in close proximity to every possible room boundary - corners, with the resulting infamous "one-note" reproduction. Then again, many commercial speaker enclosures are so poorly built, the actual resonating walls "complement" sound output to such a significant degree, even applying the term Hi-Fi loosely is a misnomer anyway.
@@paulb4661 Could not agree more. Ports do much damage to the sound. There is also port harmonics at multiples of the tuned frequency and the fact that other midrange sounds exit out of the port and become latent and out of phase with the front wave. Only port designed I like is the Karlson design which is an exponentially opening exit to the port. Speakers are room energizers, placement, reflections, boundaries, objects in the room resonating. It is all futile but we keep listening anyways. I am experimenting with open baffle single driver design. Kind of a dipole flat baffle with a side wing. Speakers, rooms, and microphones do the most damage to the sound.
Or for ears. Nerves are very sensitive.
I love Paul, by far the very best teacher : clarity, explanations, audio,
video, tutorials, short, effective to the point with not too much info
& just the right amount of info &
never condescending...always 👍👍
Looking 👀👂🔊🔜
This is the first time I got an explanation why bookshelf speakers have a lower impedance. About 25 years ago I bought a pair of kef reference one speakers, they were 90 db at 8 ohm. My amplifier was a 50 watts at 8 ohm. The amp I bought was half the price of the price I payed for my speakers. I don’t play a high volume and that worked fantastic. I play all sorts of music going from renaissance vocal music to Led Zeppelin and the music sounded always fantastic and realistic. Went to classical performances as to rock performances. Now I’m playing with an Arcam surround receiver with great power and a set of Audio Physic Temp speakers who needs lots of power. When my wife and I bought a studio not to small were we are staying regular and were we going to live in a few years.
I searched for a set of bookshelf speakers and found out those speakers needs a very expensive amplifier with lots of power and price of the amp was far much expensive than the speakers and I didn’t understood why. With video I got the explanation. Thank you very much. At the end I bought an marantz streaming receiver with 60 watts at 8 ohm and 80 watts at 4 ohm and a pair of speakers from Amphion Argon 1. They have the same price as my amp. And they are good match.
Greetings from Belgium
Ludo
Great! :) Never heard this explained before. And I actually understood it. Don't ask me to repeat it though. I didn't take notes. Thanks Paul.
Yeah...hope there's not gonna be a quiz...lol
Thanks Paul. I think I got the essence of it. I can probably explained again.... without all the numbers on dB, Watt, Sqr ft and throw a lot of "believe me" in between sentences
THANK YOU SO MUCH! Just answered a lot of questions for me!!
Your most coherent answer ever !
I could listen to you all day. Thanks 👍
great question, terrific answers
Beautiful, coherent explanation. Nicely done! Thank you!
Excellent information. Thank you!!!
I know you have touched on this before. Thanks for going into the great details of why.
Absolutely love your content.
Your knowledge is invaluable
😀👍
One of your best Paul,and I've watched tons of your videos! For a guy with a house full of large,vintage Jbl's,I really appreciate this one!
This is incredibly interesting. A lot of my questions just got answered. Thanks Paul. Happy holidays to you and your family and everyone at PS Audio.
Excellent video and breakdown. A lot of information packed into a short video - and yet presented in a way that was really easy to follow. Thank you!
Great question, but an amazing answer! Many thanks Paul
Great video. Very informative.
Thank you Paul.
My pleasure.
Audiophile addiction is a euphoric journey! Just when I though I had a pretty good understanding of how something works, I then get slapped with captivating information such as this. Paul's the best. Thanks for bringing joy and a big smile into my stressful life, as well as to your audiophile community. Merry Christmas 🎄
Thanks again, Paul....................great explanation!
I learned something today, thank you.
I always feel I’m kneeling at the feet of the master! Thanks again for another brilliant video. Small speakers with bass means inefficient. So simple when Paul explains it.
Learning new things every time I watch another video. Even if the subject has been covered in previous ones. I appreciate you explaining them different. Thanks Paul! Need more talks with Darin on amp and preamp designs. Be cool if he could show on a circuit schematic or the spice program the designs and what he is aiming for and describing. Perhaps this is too in depth. It would be fun. Maybe bring out the portable whiteboard?
Great video. Thanks.
Thanks Mr Paul this was a reveation
Learned something new today!
Thanks for that Paul, nice to get an answer to my question, that's been puzzling me for a while 🙄
Thank you for the great explanation.
Hi Poul
Thanks again for the tech talk.
They do make medium efficient speakers with low fs.
I just bought a pair of 10” woofers with a fs. At 18Hz and a efficient of 89dw
Yes they were ...
Great video
Thanks Paul. Great video that explains a lot.b
Great explanation!! Thanks
Thanks for this good question and great explanation! With (bookshelf) speakers getting smaller and powerful amps cheaper, one can still achieve great sound without the focus on sensitivity.
The Mica RB45 for example is a small speaker with rather low sensitivity but with a big sound and low end. Downside of that type of configuration is you really need to drive the speakers and play rather loud to make them sound right. High sensitivity speakers tend to sound already great at lower volume/less db's. So if you are a quiet evening/midnight listener a higher sensitivity speaker would be the better choice. Or an actieve DSP controlled speaker which "corrects" driver behavior over the whole volume range.
Again, I clearly understand what high-efficiency speakers are missing and why big speakers( those are mentioned in the video) are big. lol.Thank you so much, Paul.
Great explanation.
Great video, thanks!!
you make such informative videos!! thank you so much
Most informative video ever. All are informative but this one is tops. It explains why my 462 Dayton Audio 9inch tall speakers with 4inch woofer AMT tweeter 84 sensitivity has such great bass. Thank you sir.
Pushing my Pioneer Hpm 100 with 100 watt sansui , shakes my house and detail is awesome Thank you
I have been wondering about this forever. You find efficient and less efficient speakers in the market. Both can be inexpensive to very expensive. And yet the difference in terms of what can drive them is dramatic. I could never wrap my head around why everybody didn’t make only efficient ones--Now I know. Thank you
Great video. My brother has an old set of Altec Lancing Valencia speakers. Super efficient but you are completely right. Not a whole lot of bass at all. They sound great though.
Except for mingling sensitivity with efficiency, great vids. Thumbs up! ❤️
enjoyed your talk. Keep well.
Great explanation thank you. I bought a pair of Hertz for my front doors in my truck for use with the anemic factory radio because they had the highest sensitivity I could find at 93. I also noticed the woofer cone construction of paper was unique compared to other options and didn’t understand why until now. I also didn’t understand the relationship to bass response. While tuning my system my heart was telling me the front crossover should be set to HPF and close to 80, but my ears were telling me between 100-150 sounded more balanced with my sub set at closer to 110-120 instead of 70-80ish (both slopes 12db).
Thx Paul, this explain my klipsch speaker
good question and thanks for the answer I just thought it is a case of putting two drivers or three in an enclosure
Great explanation, thank you.
Well said, Paul! 👍
perfect explanation mate thank youuu
good question, GREAT answer. I've been an audio enthusiast for decades and didn't know the true size factor. 8X the volume says uh, volumes about why efficiency has been 'traded down'. Much easier to blend a sub with a 89-90dB speaker that reaches down to a real 40Hz or so than a 93dB+ speaker which only goes down to a higher useable range due to box size limitations. I'll take that tradeoff every time with all the amp power we have on hand nowadays. Excellent and simple explanation Paul. 128K +1 subscribers
Dear Paul, sorry for my formerly not so friendly comment! In the meantime I had the pleasure of listening to a couple of your videos and certainly you know about all of the details.
I guess it is just difficult to bring it all up in those 6 min casts. In fact you regained all of my sympathy when I took note that you are a high efficiency addict (like me).
In particular I like your statement (quote just alike..) : "take a high efficiency system and try to optimize it with the least possible compromise...." That is EXACTLY my approach in speaker building!!!
As a speaker designer there's some considerations that I always make the same decisions with; homes here in europe are getting smaller and smaller, for more and more money, so if I go by hoffman's iron law of "bass response, small box, sensitivity; pick 2", then I'm ALWAYS going to choose small box, and with how most modern music is recorded and the reluctance and difficulty adding bass through subwoofers, I'm probably also going to choose bass response.
The other reason I'm going to discount sensitivity is how electrically noisy home environments can be these days, and how infrequently people use decent power conditioning, a high sensitivity tweeter is going to expose your noise floor MUCH faster than a low sensitivity design, if I can improve other aspects of the speaker and reduce that noise floor, I'm going to do it.
I do risk alienating the old-school crowd in my design approaches, but I hope that hi-fi will come back into fashion with the younger crowd and I believe my designs are much more orientated to their needs.
I enjoyed reading this
What speakers are you designing?
@@mctapia12 I've always got some sort of project on the go, the pair I'm just finishing up is a 2 way 14 litre bookshelf using ultra affordable components and crossover duties done by Cabinet design rather than electronically. I've managed to get them to play 35hz-20khz +\- 3db
Hi Paul, just an additional point. a higher efficiency speaker hooked up to an amplifier at the same volume setting almost always soundsbetter unless it is driven into high distortion or worse. As per Fletcher and Munson and their successors, our ears have less sensitivity at the frequency extremes than in the middle. So, the higher volume speaker will sound better, all other things being equal and, sometimes, even when they are not. So it is always good to match volumes between speakers precisely before comparing them. A quick way to do this is to switch between the speakers using white or pink noise which can be found in many free apps and is well approximated by interstation hiss! Comparing speakers at different levels was a favorite trick of unscrupulous Hi-Fi dealers back in the day. Thanks again!
Lovely description. Thank you.
I have Capella CP-3000 that are 60 watt RMS, 4-8 Ohm, 85db sensitivity, 3-way speakers (Engineered by Bose) in the early 80s. They need a good amp, bought a Yamaha RX-V450 AV receiver and that did not cut it at all.
Later I bought a Behringer iNuke NU1000DSP amplifier to drive my transducers that I have on my racing simulation chair/rig, and I hooked up the speakers to that. I was blown away by the audio quality I got from them once properly driven. Especially the bass got so nice, tight and correct sounding.
Crappy thing is that the PA amp has a fan in it that makes a lot of noise. Nothing to worry about on stage, but in the livingroom it's a no go.
I am using a pair of JBL LX2005. The sensitivity is 91dB, Frequency Response: 35Hz to 22kHz, Recommended Amplifier: 10 to 250W and they sound great coupled with my valve amp build in the 1960's. I don't think I would get the enjoyment with the valve amp if they were not as sensitive. PS love the videos Paul and I have learned a lot, thanks.
great question, perfect answer without any high end voodoo. Maybe what could be added: Smaller, low efficiency woofer have more problems with power compression due to high power input. Huge excursion of woofer causes several distortions like more doppler effect and the nonlinearity of the mass-spring-system.
I asked a similar question several videos back. It would be awesome to hear Chris' take on the topic. Thank you so much! Another great video Paul!
"Efficiency" is not JUST a matter of (moving) mass, it's also (among yet other factors) a matter of effective coupling of the driver diaphragm to the air, and that relates to effective piston (or horn mouth) area. A larger piston has greater air resistance and relatively less inefficient and turbulent "side-spill" (due to a higher ratio of area to circumference), therefore it is more effective at transducing mechanical motion to acoustical energy. You could say it has more traction to the room; another analogy would be a high-bypass turbojet engine. Also its inherently higher directionality increases its "throw", which does not increase overall efficiency but does increase its on-axis sensitivity. All else equal, a larger driver area gives a more dynamic listening experience... within its coverage area.
Thank You...
Lower moving mass (Mms) implies a higher resonance frequency of the drive unit , wich impedes how low you can tune it
Engineering work arounds to that too. TAD Pioneer electronics designed a dual voice coil woofer with a special low mass ceramic cone. The second voice coil starts passing energy by the crossover to keep the bass roll off flat by dipping the impedance lower to 6 ohms under 50hz or so.
Very clear
May very well just described the problem im having with my speakers. The manufacturer wanted a very high efficient loudspeaker, but wanted to focus on maintaining the bass approx 30hz just like was mentioned. Then also design the cabinet to not take up much floor space. They ended up going with a pair of 6in subwoofers in each cabinet for the low end, 5in midbass for the midbass plus some of the midrange. The cone material is very thin and light weight. So Im almost certain that what im hearing is "cone cry". While listening to bass heavy music at high volume. The only reason I desided to purchase the loudspeaker was because of how much bass and full range sound they put out. They do 30hz well and are quick and punchy. Bass string solos sound amazing. But just like what was also mentioned. Using a shorter voice coil to reduce the weight. Even though they can take some power. Can't really take advantage of it since they really do start to lose linearity. I used to believe that they were the absolute best you can get for the money. Even though they still sound impressive for what you get at that price. Until after several critical listening sessions I noticed what was described. Had no idea what was wrong with them. Now I know. Thanks!
Another interesting video.
Mid-80's I came across a pair of Lowther Accousta Speakers at a second-hand shop, can remember cranking up the volume and they would take all the different genres that were thrown at them with an amazing deep bass.
Moving forward and into marriage, size became a problem so we parted company - isn't the bass response also connected with cabinet design and how the rear of the speaker is ported?
This is why I love audio as a hobby. Nothing’s perfect nothings every really done DONE always room for improvement. And you can enjoy it pretty much 24 hours a day in one form or another. I’m into both car and home audio if I had a boat I’d be into boat audio as well 😎
Hi Paul, 8 times the volume probably is twice the hight, width and dept, 2 x 2 x 2 = 8? Still a lot bigger for one octave, but it won't fill the whole room. Thanks for all the explaining.
great information for an audiophile like me my bose acoustimass speaker sound great
I'm using a pair of 1984 Klipsch Cornwalls (102 dB speaker sensitivity) connected to a modern ss amp, 1980's tube preamp, and analog (turntable) and digital sources (cd player, DAC, music streamer). And with regards to bass, the speakers produce a really great bass response. True, the speakers are very big but I love their look.
I‘ve had some klipsch rf7 mk2 and they were big. The bass was loud but not deep and not precise. It‘s a party, rock, metal speaker but compared to my actual b&w 804 d3 it‘s a night and day difference in all aspects, not only the bass.
I had a Pair of JR 149s they were 90 DB and yes not much bass but the midrange was a sweet sound
I would suggest that an important factor on woofer efficiency ( without bass loss ), is the size or field strength of its magnet.
yes he does not even mention this I heard great bass even with small speakers with high efficiency and audibly sound faster at all frequencies
Yes. If the magnet is not magnetized (I guess it wouldn't be a magnet then) the efficiency goes to nothing. On the other hand, it doesn't work quite as linearly as one might think. The BL "constant' is the magnetic field density multiplied by the effective length of the voice coil in the magnetic gap and it determines the force exerted by the motor per unit of current. So, you would think that twice the BL would give you twice as much everything. However, there is a magnetic damping force created by the back EMF = BL*u where u is the velocity, that counters this. A great piece of freeware is Unibox for Excel. It is a good enclosure design tool and it allows you to play with these things. If you have an interest, and a few hours to kill, it is pretty fun. Cheers!
@@pauldavies6037 see my comment above. It's more than amazing what strong neodym motors can do nowadays!!!
@@AndrewUnruh A good speaker design tries to shortcut the back EMP by demodulation rings on the magnet center pole
@@thomasbotz7564 yes big improvement the last few years
Paul wont say the K-word. LOL
Yea, my "K" Forte IIs are 99dB, with a low of 32 Hz. Paul's math isn't working here....lol
damn. excellent information.
I've noticed as well with Horn speakers. not to mention any brands but the efficiency comes from the horn which to me as about 6 db higher then the woofer. not something i particularity care for.
I know some speaker cabinets (2 stereo and 1 bass( that can hit 118 dB SPL at 1 meter at 1 watt. My old Sunn 2x15 front=facing rear-loaded folded horn that could blast a theater with 100 watts. However, if you had an acoustic labyrinth speaker with a 6" woofer, it would probably sound better for pipe organ or electronic music. The Sunn cabinet was made to compete with guitar stacks, but the bass only goes down to about 40 Hz, so you're mainly hearing the harmonics. if you want to play a 32 Hx pipe organ note, you wound need a design that sacrifices efficiency for very deep bass. Very deep Nass costs a lot in power. Take a look sometime at the baddest pipe of.a big pipe organ, and you can get an idea of how long the wavelength is that you are trying to reproduce. From my understanding, the acoustic labyrinth speaker (with a very long rear port) can actually have a speaker play below its resonant frequency. I haven't tried it, but I've read about it. Now that I've switched from a 4 string bass going down to E. I have an extra string that goes down to the B below the E. It makes me more aware of the deep bass issue. It's a trade off.
That's why my Infinity 6522ix has weak bass. However, the clarity and crispness is very nice.
This is great. Thanks Paul 👍
What I seem to notice also is that higher sensitivity speakers become loud quickly so it’s harder to control the volume. Goes too low then goes too high etc.
Impedance also seems to play a factor?
This goes back to the car stereo days but my buddy had a certain amp and system that was very sensitive to volume. There was no circular knob control either. It was a slide bar type deck.
So when you pushed the lever up even slightly it would easily start to distort.
One of the amps also went out. Realized he was running each channel at 2 ohms which was not ideal for this particular amp.
He had 4 8 in subs each rated at 4 ohms. We didn’t pay much attention to sensitivity. I re-wired into series vs parallel and everything was much better. Amp still had enough power to drive the 4 subs.
The volume was much more easy to control also.
Does distortion factor into the speaker sensitivity also? Meaning the more efficient the speaker the more likely noise can be picked up?
in stadiums and discotechs yes, when music is not playing you can hear a little noise 55db, but when music 120db plays you cant hear noise
Wow cool thanks you just connected some dots for me
Avantgarde!
Hey Paul thanks for your videos. I have a couple dumb questions I hope you can answer. When you bridge two channels to one speaker does it actually mix the stereo signal to get mono or do you only get signal from one channel with more power? Second question is if you had a two channel amp and two speakers in the same box like say a portable radio. Is there an advantage one way or another to wire one channel to each speaker (stereo) or wire them in series then bridged to the amp to get (mono)? I'm just wondering if there is really an advantage to stereo when the speakers are right next to each other or if given them the exact same signal will produce a louder or better quality sound... Thanks
Greatly depends on the types of transducers one is looking for to achieve an outcome . Size, power, & ones type of system set up is key!
I would like to add also that high efficiency speakers are revealing and can give a hint of floor noise, that's one of the trade-offs also pending on equipment
That really was a great question... My front speakers are 89 db sensitivity and my new center is 96 db, I sent back my Elac because it sounded "muddy" but it had a sensitivity of 85db. Today I will test the new center (Klipsch RP450c) which is a "2.5" way speaker with a claimed sensitivity of 96db and see how it sounds.... I am starting to wonder about setting the crossover at 70 hz for LCR instead of L+R at 50 hz and the center at 70?
Interesting topic.
I am currently tinkering around on hub dynamo powered stereo system for bicycle (with a buffer batterie of course).
The electric part (dynamo , small mppt solar charger to get the max out of the dynamo, a nimh battery and a small class d amp with 12W) works much better than expected but the speaker design is hard. With the 5th prototype (aiming for the most boom for the watt) i now have a weird looking 6 liter ported speaker on both sides of my front wheel and it only starts to sound decent.
And even if most of the people i ask find the sound quite good,
i want to build something that sounds better than a 90's portable cassette stereo.
PS i can send you a picture if you want to have a laugh
Hi Paul, That was an interesting topic there, thanks for sharing your insight ! I have a question- What about Klipsch Rf7iii ( i own a pair and the bass is wow ) they are rated at 100DB sensitive and the frequency response starts from 20 hz. They have 2 10 inch woofers per box:) . This is contradicting with your statement. Can you please explain?
Paul's example was simply a "for example". He wasn't referring to any specific actual speaker. Your Klipshes are spec'd as -3dB at 32Hz. For extreme low frequencies, your room and speaker setup have a very large influence on how low they will go. If you have brick walls, your bass will be much stronger than if you live in a flimsy mobile home.
Klipsch also lie in theire efficiency rating. Rf7s are fairly efficient yes, but far from 100db/w efficient.
@@ThePentosin Yup. They are also "8 ohm compatible' which isn't a true 8 ohm load so maybe 6 ohm in reality? Klipsch's high sensitivity numbers is a marketing lie IMO. Who cares how sensitive a tweeter/horn is when its the woofers that count? Did you also get them on sale as their pricing is also a marketing gimmick.
What I would like to know is why JBL"s most popular studio monitor/home speaker woofers (circa 1970s) had very low resonant frequencies, super high Vas, and relatively low Qts which were later abandoned. Those attributes gave the speakers very powerful and punchy bass.
Love your answers. Let me ask this, Why are Klipsch speakers so efficient? I am about to purchase a pair of RP-600, do they not produce bass because they are so efficient?
Not a deep bass. No subsonic. I‘ve owned abpair of rf7 mk2. Great speakers but they could only get down to maybe 60 hz. I‘ve gor room modes at 30 hz. Never discovered it with the big, big klipsch.
Sedgefield. Sedge rhymes with hedge.
A 15-watt Vox AC15C2 with 12” 100db celestion blue speakers WILL blow your socks off. Not much use for home hifi though.
Good video 😎
Have gone the dipole OB route with Spatial speakers and bass slams, so I don't know what you're talking about 😎
@@Base612 Last years M3 Triode Masters
DCM used labyrinths inside their boxes to move more bass using more efficient mid-bass drivers. The DCM Timeframe 600s have 92dB sensitivity and can go down to 30 hertz using a mid bass driver.
Efficiency is a trade off. The most efficient speakers are used for PA systems, but they also have to be able to handle huge amounts of heat from the hi wattage amps they use. Low efficiency speaker have have more damping. That helps when you have an impulse or quick beat of a bass drum, the damping makes the speaker stop ringing very quickly. Ringing, especially in the woofer , cause distortion of the low frequency audio signal. So a quick hit on the bass drum sounds boomy, and doesn’t stop ringing as fast. But they’re are speakers that do fairly well in the efficiency department and in the damping department. But they’re hard to find. This is the main reason that speaker builders are moving to smaller bass drivers. My old 12” were not anywhere as good as my 7” Focals.
My Magnat Vintage 420 floorstanders with 92 dB sensitivity have range 22 - 75.000 Hz. Most rock music I play without SW because no need.
Speakers can do better than the 84 and 85 db I am seeing. That is just ridiculous. But the huge box thing, I have JBL D130's as subwoofers. And they have had some verious modifications to the cones and suspensions over the years, all of which have an effect on their efficiency. If I had to guess it is possible they have about 1.5db lower than they are rated for from factory. But I also need to have them in some rather creatively designed boxes to get them to extend low enough to be satisfying. Mine are roughly 8 cubic feet in the main chamber and have a horn loaded port. They tucker out about 37-40hz or so and the boxes are absolutely huge, as the horn is almost the same volume as the back chamber. I also power them with a decent sized amp, though I don't really ever take them to their potential. My midhigh's are full range heavely modded 5" Fostex (at the moment) on about 8 watts of tube power.
Not necessarily. Improving the efficiency of a speaker system can actually enhance bass performance if done correctly. Efficient speaker designs can often produce cleaner and more accurate bass, as they can handle more power effectively, resulting in better control over low frequencies. However, it ultimately depends on the specific design choices made by the manufacturer and how they balance efficiency with other factors like bass response.
There are more and more speakers out there that are genuinely efficient and also are able to play bass. Some manufacturer's use separate amps for the woofers but there are some nice speakers that can play well with low wattage amps. My speakers are not bass shy... and 97.5 db. It is truly incredible the number of people that are into audio and audio solutions, and the range of products that make, these days.
whoa that is a high rating! what are your speakers may i ask.
@@chinmeysway they are Audionote AN/E's, which are designed to be placed near the wall and play into the sub bass with this placement... great with low power clas A amps...these speakers are less ideally suited for music which requires solid state bass slam
Thank you Paul for your continued, informative presentations. However, you failed at saying Klipsch, (O; and so much so that you slapped the JBL nametag onto a Klipsch product still being made some 73 years to this day!
And yes, at 105 DB efficient, Paul delt with the bass issue by designing an EIGHT FOOT bass horn into a rather compact corner design to keep up with the big mid horn..............in 1946 !! Since the person writing in mentioned his Martin Logans, the ESL-9 Classic (in my system) are rated at 90 DB for those that are interested in the Masterpiece series e-stats being produced today.
Klipsch Cornwall 4 speakers with Pass Labs Int 60 will sound like a rock concert or a soft ballad without distortion.
Hi Paul, I would like to hear answer about overall sound quality. Does higher sensitivity loudspeaker will reproduce sound better than lower sensitivity loudspeaker? I mean vocals for example. Low frequency it is for subwoofer.
yes, cleaner sound
When i play a grand accord on a grand piano with fortissimo , it produces 115db/1m peak....if the speaker and amp cannot deliver the signal will be compressed, its called crest factor....a belgian audio constructor worked with vitavox s2 and klipschhorn or jbl 2245 bass , so minimal 96db/w ....