This isn't meant to be argumentative, so bear me
out-- just take it as a glimpse into Theatre-Style Hi-Fi. 4 watts is a LOT of POWER! I have yet to hear a speaker--
regardless of cost- that needs over about 1/2 watt that
can even remotely approach delivering real-life dynamics,
musical energy that can follow the musical "grooves", etc. If you can find one-- regardless of price or amp power,
then show me..... I've never heard it happen. You start losing music when you need more power.
More power can deliver the needed power and bandwidth.
What it can't deliver is connection to music because the
speaker and the amp is now using up the voltage swings
of micro dynamics. Of course, more power can easily restore this ratio-- correct?
Nope. It just doesn't happen in real life, Sorry there. The extra
power makes it worse yet, Now, even more small signal is lost.
Overwhelmed by too much current. If one could buy a 115db/watt woofer that was built right, he
would find today's best--- 101db units-- to sound muffled and
lethargic by comparison. We all have to live with what we can actually buy. Your choice of speakers is quite limited. Limited in what sense?
All of the world's best speakers are about 99db/watt or better.
That's not limited to me. I would say they're the only ones to buy! You probably need large cabinets... You MUST have them!
These large cabinets are not an option, they're a minimum
requirement. Damping factor confuses me because everyday I hear small S.E.
amps delivering the best, most outstanding deep bass that any
equipment of any kind out there is delivering. It goes deeper,
is much faster, it's cleaner, and its start-up and cutoff is
vastly superior. A good amp will not cause a woofer cone to visibly move-- at all.
Damping factor? That is the ideal, isn't it? So why, then, is the
calculated damping factor so low with S.E. amps? It's just my
opinion but I would be looking at power supply characteristics
and internal amp wiring, not to mention speaker cables and internal
driver and crossover wiring before I would get all wrapped up in
Damping Factor theory. A good point here is that many modern drivers are designed to
run on solid-state amps that have high D.F. Historically speaking, those drivers were designed not to make
music but to avoid warranty problems from burned-out voice coils
operating on high-current amplifiers. Looser machining created
more air cooling, and heavier voice-coil wire handled more
current. Result? You lose 90% or more of music's most dynamic
and compelling performances. We have a lot of deliberately-designed crappy drivers today, but
we can also buy the best High-Eff., low current drivers that have
ever been made. Examples are: GPA, ALES, and a whole group of
reasonably priced items from Radian, and from Germany and Italy. We also have some "pro" drivers that guitarists are using, made
in Tennessee, and in other places in the USA. Some of these are really good, and are low-cost. We do have a problem in accessing relevant data, but most
speaker driver's specs help us out a lot. You don't need a lot of watts, but you do need large
cabinetry and outstanding, well-machined and tightly
constructed (efficient) drivers. Since you can easily lose the whole thing with too small
speaker and crossover wiring or inferior wire metallurgy,
you have to carefully address that area also. -Dennis- .
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