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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater. |
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In Reply to: Don't you think you're being a bit overly pedantic here? The OP was really posing a generalized question. posted by cfb on July 22, 2012 at 06:30:33:
The diatribe about sensitivity vs. efficiency was not overly pedantic in the least because it directly addresses the OP's question and the misconceptions inherent to that often asked question. Once again, sensitivity is a characteristic or specification that stipulates decibel output for a commonly referenced input voltage. It is not a decibel per watt rating as you seem intent on suggesting above. Voltage (applied force) and the resulting acoustic output is sensitivity. Wattage consumed vs acoustic output is efficiency. They are not the same and because a lot of people treat them as equivalent, they end up asking questions like the OP's original question. Perhaps there wouldn't be such a need for pedantic responses if this misunderstanding were not so persistent or widespread. Everyone from Stereophile's Atkinson to people like me have attempted to improve understanding and awareness on this issue so that people would not read too much into a loudspeaker's sensitivity rating. It is an important rating that tells you how loud a speaker will get for a specific gain setting but it doesn't accurately convey the speaker's ability to reproduce dynamic contrasts adequately. The speaker's efficiency rating is a better indicator of that performance characteristic because the ability to accurately render dynamic contrasts is ultimately reflected in the ratio of the incremental changes in applied signal versus the mean signal strength level. Loudspeakers, whether they possesss a high or low nominal impedance will be better able to convey dynamic contrasts if energy losses are reduced (higher efficiency) since energy losses in most energy conversion devices are not linear phenomena. So if energy losses are more dominant, the non linearity in dynamic response associated with energy losses will also be more dominant.
The concepts are somewhat subtle. So we have to work doubly hard to improve understanding so that people don't wind up making wrong assumptions about loudspeakers - effectively removing some from consideration and including others based on incorrect assumptions. This may be a pedantic exercise to you but to people in the business of making and selling speakers, it really matters whether or not prospective buyers have an adequate understanding.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Don't you think you're being a bit overly pedantic here? The OP was really posing a generalized question. - villastrangiato 18:19:58 07/22/12 (0)
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