It seems EVERYBODY get this wrong. 90dB = spl @ 1w/1m BUT the standard test is measured with a 1khz signal. As you go lower in frequency the power demand to produce the same 90dB spl increases. John Darko even made a whole podcast about speaker sensitivity and power requirements and totally misses this.
Nobody’s ears are flat in amplitude versus frequency either, so from the mid range to treble frequencies people’s ears are more sensitive also, especially at lower SPL’s. That’d be more prominent than a given speaker’s measured amplitude flatness over frequency at a specific power level, since power level will affect the ear’s response, although 90 dB SPL should pick up the low end and high end a lot better than if talking 60 dB SPL. A lot to think about here, things are not as simple as people always try to make them out to be.🧐
@@shipsahoy1793 yea there are alot of variables here. But there seem to be a wide spread misunderstanding that a 90dB rated speaker can play full range music at 90dB powered by just 1 Watt. My point is that ppl are misinterpreting the meaning of a speakers sensitivity rating.
My transmission line speakers generate the same SPL with 9W/ch, 50W/ch and 180W/ch amplifiers @ 30 Hz. I imagine the 180W/ch is _capable_ of driving the speakers louder than the 9W/ch amplifier, but I have no desire to go deaf in my right ear. Already deaf in my left ear.
A smaller speaker tends to be THINNER with the bass and meatiness of the vocals. Some will try to add a separate sub but often the sub can't keep up and sound in rhythm with the other speaker. The other aspect is a taller speaker tends to have better and wider staging. When I listen it's as if I am at concert for depth of vocals and instruments. The speakers even floor and not bookshelf that go up about 3 feet to 4 feet the stage tends to chop off from halfway up the wall down to the ground versus not hearing a floor or a ceiling with the larger speakers. Now bigger speakers usually in bigger rooms and bigger budgets so it all comes down to what the listener is trying to achieve and their budget to get there.
Great Q&A. Also counter intuitive... a big driver moves far less to make the same spl. I have 18" woofers. Never move more than a mm but make really BIG sound.
il add something to this discussion: larger speakers usually have more drivers, more crossover components and sometimes that results in large dips in ohm's, which require more from the power supply of an amp, and that power draw need more cooling and hence larger amps.
A bigger speaker will give you more bass, and that might give the impression that it plays a bit louder than the smaller bookshelf speaker, even though they have the exact same sensitivity and playing at the same loudness.
But it is not 100% stiff rule - I made speakers which are relatively small - mid bookshelf size , biggest speaker is about only 7 inch (elyptical 3 Watt ) and they can make my room door trembling with realy low bass like 25 Hz.and so they knock. It happens only with one of my privatee recordings which I falsely arranged some 20 years ago and wasnt aware before. Actualy it worries me - I need to put "on" low filter to "silence door", worry also about overloading driver anywany it is strange reality and negates even seems obvious laws.
@Taco Right in point - in half I made them not stiff with vibrating side sufrace 🤪 And other half is stiff enclosure but no sealed type pumping through back wall only very low bass. They look very unusual some may find enough aestetic some may feel like offended on reason they are so strangely looking 😁No matter for me - I want only to listen them Hopefuly I could match right old speakers -, only one type so far. . It has much more to do even with proper dampnig both inside - this i do always with my experience and of course was corrected few times
it does makes sense in general and with simplification applied. but lets take a 6" midwoofer, sensitivity is not affected above a few hundred hz. and if the general rule of measurement is 1khz tone, sensitivity is not affected by box size. i think that speaker engineers will lower everything else to get more linear bass output from a speaker, thus lowering sensitivity by design.
Small speakers tend to have less sensitivity and less maximum output power than big speakers because they are limited in the bass by cabinet size and have fewer drivers. Big, efficient speakers will have realistic dynamics with small amps that small speakers can’t achieve, even with a big amp. Subwoofers can help close the gaps.
@@Harald_Reindl Room shape matters regarding level of lowest produced bass . The rest is in design and application of driver and enlosure . And speaker plus enclosure play as parts of electronic gear so we cant exclude anything. That is popular misleading - people who hear geat acoustic in recording assume and confuse it with room. They would state they hear ceiling reflections, they asy it sounds "deep" and so on. according to instant impression . We have to switch to worse speakers to proof them it is not room acoustic but unusual gear.
Speakers are sort of voltage driven and depending on the impedance curve, the power varies through the frequency band. Usually much less power is needed at higher frequencies, and you can see that as higher impedance which yield lower current thus lower power. To produce lots of deep bass in a large speaker or subwoofer you need lots of power.
Right but only for those who at first love lots of deep bass. Even it is popular demand , power is not everybodys obligation. Most listeners have 50-100 W in dysposition while they load amplifier up to 2 - 3 Watts and only for short time
@Douglas Blake Yes. The reason bigger speakers need more power is that generally lower frequencies require more power (not more voltage) for the same SPL and larger speakers are usually designed to output more energy at lower frequencies. A tweeter doesn't need 100s of Watts (most tweeters will fry at just 10s of Watts) but a subwoofer does for the same SPL.
@Douglas Blake It has also to do with resonance or decay, yes. The impedance curve for a linear speaker reveals how effective power is translated to audio output and a peak of high impedance means you need little power for the same SPL at that frequency but it also means the speaker decays slowly as the system is resonating like a sort of spring. I like servo subwoofers for their ability to circumvent this issue.
One thing is certain. Sound waves rely on the movement of air. A 12" or 15" woofer in a large enclosure can move a substantially larger volume of air than a 6" or 8" woofer in a smaller enclosure, resulting in more natural, less contrived bass response.
Tears ago a friend doubted me when I phoned that I had used a transistor radio's headphone jack and a cable to drive a single (used) Klipschorn to a reasonable volume . The speaker had a sensitivity of 104 dB and the radio's amplifier couldn't have had more than 1/10 Watt output as the built-in speaker was rated at 150mW max . Sound wasn't great . but better than the earphone .
Back when the Klipschorn was designed, 5-10 watt amps were what was available, and Paul Klipsch want to be able to hear the full power of a symphony orchestra with an amplifier like that. And he succeeded. At some point, he got the idea that "if it moves, it distorts", meaning that the less the driver moves, the lower the distortion produced. This drove him to try to maximize the efficiency and sensitivity of all his speakers, so they need very little amplifier power, but can retrieve the faintest details in the music, because it takes so little power to drive the drivers. Sometimes this means that their bass response is limited, like with the La Scalas, but their midrange and upper bass is amazing, and a good subwoofer or two can do a great job of supplying the bottom two or three octaves. BTW, the Klipschorn has been in production for 75 years, longer than any other speaker by a long way, so Paul got it right, all the way back in 1946. The speaker went into production in 1948, and the latest ones look a lot like the first ones, but the sound is improved, of course, with modern drivers and crossovers, and 75 years of engineering upgrades and updates in them.
A big speaker can in theory play louder on a smaller amp than a small speaker if sensitivity is about the same. But a bigger speaker driver should also have more power to have more control of the driver at loud volumes. So there are two sides of this. Power is always good to have more than enough of in a system. But in general it would require more power to get a small driver to play as loud as a bigger driver. But it depends a bit on various other factors too.
Sensivity is rated usually at 1kHz. It says nothing about bass or treble. Usually ppl think about the amount of bass when thinking about sensivity. More surface and mass of membrane means less control. Strong magnetic field means high control. Highest control = big magnet in small speaker.
@@jareknowak8712 It's just a peak SPL rating at 1watts and 1meter distance so if anyone belive it has anything to do with bass or treble they really missed the basics. Higher mass yes. But that does not equal bigger size. I bigger driver can have menbrane with less mass than a smaller one and if the power is encreased the control also encrease. So depending on alot of factors a good 10 inch driver can and up having less mass and move quicker and more controlled than a badly built 6 inch driver despite having more surface area and moves more air. A quality built driver with a strong magnetic field combined with headroom in power = great controll almost regardless of the driver size actually. It's just like cars.. A big car can be just as fast or even faster in a drag race as a small one. Just needs more engine or even just reduce more weight on the bigger car to achieve the same result.
Thanks for the answer Paul! Marius from the Netherlands here So connecting small speakers to skinnier amps and big ones to things like mcintosh and D'Agostino. (Like you often see) doesnt make sense right? Brands might do it to show what their flagship models are.
Yes but the freight train in the larger speakers is in the woofers and more so in trying to start and stop them effectively with out stressing the amp.. That takes power and control. Also with all those fast changes, doesn't the impedance change? So usually the high end amps can deal with impedances down to 1 or 2 ohms and control those drivers with ease.
@@user-od9iz9cv1w watts has nothing to do with it. The power supply and it's implementation down the chain has everything to do with it. Dampening factor is important. But an amp with a high dampening factor does not mean it will "sound good". My Hegel has a higher dampening factor than my Luxman which has a lower dampening factor but they are completely different in sound/performance, with the better being the Luxman.
Bottom line is this. It always comes down to the question of all time, BASS. to go with a 2.1 system or to go with a 2.0 system with larger drivers. It's basically is all about moving air. Period. I always go with quality over the big loud cheap crap that's out there. Over the years I've went with 2.1 systems. Don't go cheap, go with a sealed 10 or 12 inch subwoofer like the 1000 sb
if you see my other comment in the electromagnetic speaker UA-cam PS video, an electromagnetic speaker easily achieves 100dB sensitivity or more, with an underhung long travel design with full linearity for the whole throw. This would seem the place to go if you were serious because the sensitivity greatly reduces the amount amplifier you have to pay for (and pay to run, but 100W vs 10W in electricity costs is literally a cent or two an hour, ignoring amplifier efficiency, still if you are class A and green...) I would think this a topic to re-explore in much greater depth for the serious audiophile. One example, see EMS speakers from France.
Sensitivity @ 1 watt is a misconception on how the drivers respond. Sensitivity should be rated 1 watt @ the speakers freq, response. Would also give you a better perception on how it may sound.
Your analogy is flawed and is only applicable to sealed box speakers. Everything goes out the proverbial window with ported, transmission line, dipole, open-baffle, etc..
My very tiny Elac BS403 are harder for my amplifier than my big and heavy Elac FS507 both because of lower absolute lowest impedance and lower sensitivity. My Elac BS403 goes down to 3.2 ohm as lowest and my Elac FS507 goes down to 3.4 ohm as lowest.
This isnt a realistic explanation. A larger speaker, will tend to have more drivers, and much larger drivers. As such... you will need more power, to drive these larger drivers, to their maximum potentials. The biggest difference is often not in the tweeters and mids... because these do not have to be that big, to produce loud sound output. Its the Woofer, where the biggest difference, tends to be. A 3" woofer, isnt going to be as loud as an 8" woofer !!! Likewise, if you put the same amount of power that the 8" Woofer can handle... into a 3" woofer... that 3" woofer will be destroyed / fried. Now... if you use the same 3" woofer between a 1 cubic foot box... and a 4 cubic foot box... SURE... they will both have the same power requirements, and will both play about the same loudness. The larger sized box Might be able to produce a much lower bass sound, depending on the design... but thats about it. The biggest issue with smaller sized woofers, is their lack of depth in bass output. There are tricks used, such as adding artificial sounding fake-bass "Tuned-Ports". But in general, if you are using the same high quality drivers, but at a much larger diameter speaker cone... you are going to get a LOT deeper bass output potentials. (that said, there are many really poorly made large sized woofers, that have horrible bass and accuracy issues). Also, there are in fact really small speaker drivers, that can handle a MASSIVE amount of power. I have a pair of 70s bookshelf speakers that have 8" woofers in them... and a single 8" driver, probably weighs more than three 12" drivers, from my previous 90s era speakers. Why? These 8" drivers use much stronger magnets, and much stronger voice coils... which result in a Much greater sound quality. That said... such powerful drivers are rarely seen in smaller sized speakers... due to the ECO-Radicals, as well as the utter Ignorance of the general masses. I will say this... that while my old speakers could not play as loud as my modern speakers... they sounded so much better, that I didnt even care. Those modern speakers, were quickly put out on the curb, for trash pickup... as that is what they were. Low spec, low quality, Eco-Trash. When you hear how music is Supposed to actually sound, you can never go back. Note: Having stronger power requirements, doesnt always mean louder output. With my old 70s speakers, for example... the stronger magnets and stronger voice coils, are used to move the speakers movement with far more precision and control.... for far less potential in playback distortions. They are also a "Sealed" speaker... which produces far more accurate and Natural sounding bass... compared to ported speakers. Sealed speakers require much more power, to be able to deal with air compression forces, inside of the speaker. PA / Concert speakers are very Efficient (and thus, can be very loud), but that comes at the cost of superior near-distortion-free Cone control.
There is one detail which I often feel is omitted. SPL it is measured sound level in 1 meter distance from membrane but measured in silence chamber or open air or super good treated room. In typical situations reflections provide that even we as listeners move back next meter which should result by 8 times (almiost 6 dB) less the reflections alow sound level to be not much lower. This applies to not big room and not much treated.
@@stimpy1226 It is a bit of a joke, but a 30 Watt amplifier with a great stable power supply can not drive a Magnaplaner, but good? Would be a nice test. Just like my NAD D3020 for now, it is only 30 Watt but drives vintage B&w Dm2a with ease.
WRT sensitivity there's no argument - X Watts @ 1m for the same sensitivity rating gets you the same SPL - that's what the sensitivity measure is. The larger speaker probably has more mass (more material, bigger voice coils, more air resistance) so, even though you get sufficient displacement of air to achieve the same SPL, you need to overcome the momentum of the mass of the speaker. Controlling the speaker throughout its many oscillations across a wide range of frequencies present in music is important. Perhaps watch Paul @ PS Audio discuss "damping factor" in ua-cam.com/video/sokGmNo12RI/v-deo.html&ab_channel=PSAudio.
i have 5.25 inch drivers and they peak each at 400 watts and 200 watts rms which is more watts than most speakers with just one driver 🤣, they are also the loudest in my system besides my sub woofers
@@Harald_Reindl uhm they are rated at 4 ohms and sensitivity around 90 something there spec is good, the more wattage the clearer the sound, all I was trying to say is companies don’t put the best drivers in speakers only after market drivers are better
@@Harald_Reindl no it’s not, the louder it plays the clearer the sound, low watts speakers are a scam and a way to rip off the public, most companies including this one scams the public nearly every time they sell. If the poor can afford it than it’s not a scam
WAIT WAIT, so you're saying that, technically, small speakers are quieter because they have to be put in smaller boxes, which increases the back pressure??? Whaaat
The car audio scam industry is VERY bad about playing games with numbers. Some car audio subwoofers have sensitivity ratings down in the 80-something db range, and yet they have power handling ratings over 1000 watts. Let's play that out. If the sensitivity is 90 db then at 1000 watts, the output is 120 db. But you could have another, much efficient subwoofer, one with a sensitivity of 100 db, and it only takes 100 watts to get 120 db. But because that sub would likely be advertised as having a power handling capacity of around a hundred, maybe 200 watts, the not well educated buyer who is impressed by numbers that he doesn't understand is going to probably want to buy a 1000 watt amp and the 1000 watt rated speaker instead of a 100 watt amp and 100 watt rated subwoofer that delivers exactly the same volume level. And then there's the half educated buyer, who thinks he can put the more sensitive (100 db rated sensitivity) speaker together with the 1000 watt amp and get 130 decibels....but that just blows up the speaker.
@@jareknowak8712 Calling someone's car a "clown car" is insulting countless people who worked their butts off to pay for that car. No one likes to have their car's looks insulted. No one likes to have any of their property insulted. And the more sweat a person puts in to earning the ownership of their property makes such an insult all the worse. If our host is with friends of equal prosperity, and they want to take jabs at each other, that is all well and good, as those folks can buy a Fiat with piss money. But to publicly make fun of people that purchased Fiats is simply wrong. I do not believe that our host intended to insult anyone. But our host lives in a bubble. He comes across as down to Earth, but he is not. He occasionally slips with revealing comments.
It seems EVERYBODY get this wrong. 90dB = spl @ 1w/1m BUT the standard test is measured with a 1khz signal. As you go lower in frequency the power demand to produce the same 90dB spl increases. John Darko even made a whole podcast about speaker sensitivity and power requirements and totally misses this.
Nobody’s ears are flat in amplitude versus frequency either, so from the mid range to treble frequencies people’s ears are more sensitive also, especially at lower SPL’s. That’d be more prominent than a given speaker’s measured amplitude flatness over frequency at a specific power level, since power level will affect the ear’s response, although 90 dB SPL should pick up the low end and high end a lot better than if talking 60 dB SPL. A lot to think about here, things are not as simple as people always try to make them out to be.🧐
Room acoustic support low range. In open air or big hall power requirements are sky rocketing but typical room walls are helping to limit power. .
@@shipsahoy1793 yea there are alot of variables here. But there seem to be a wide spread misunderstanding that a 90dB rated speaker can play full range music at 90dB powered by just 1 Watt. My point is that ppl are misinterpreting the meaning of a speakers sensitivity rating.
@@Mikexception sure but a speaker rated at 90dB won’t produce a spl of 90dB at say 75hz being powered by 1 Watt.
My transmission line speakers generate the same SPL with 9W/ch, 50W/ch and 180W/ch amplifiers @ 30 Hz. I imagine the 180W/ch is _capable_ of driving the speakers louder than the 9W/ch amplifier, but I have no desire to go deaf in my right ear. Already deaf in my left ear.
A smaller speaker tends to be THINNER with the bass and meatiness of the vocals. Some will try to add a separate sub but often the sub can't keep up and sound in rhythm with the other speaker. The other aspect is a taller speaker tends to have better and wider staging. When I listen it's as if I am at concert for depth of vocals and instruments. The speakers even floor and not bookshelf that go up about 3 feet to 4 feet the stage tends to chop off from halfway up the wall down to the ground versus not hearing a floor or a ceiling with the larger speakers. Now bigger speakers usually in bigger rooms and bigger budgets so it all comes down to what the listener is trying to achieve and their budget to get there.
Looking at the black ps audio product there made me now starting to like that design especially with the blue lights
Great Q&A.
Also counter intuitive... a big driver moves far less to make the same spl. I have 18" woofers. Never move more than a mm but make really BIG sound.
Nothing counter intuitive here.
I do know of a bookshelf that is up to 2ohms so you are right on.
il add something to this discussion: larger speakers usually have more drivers, more crossover components and sometimes that results in large dips in ohm's, which require more from the power supply of an amp, and that power draw need more cooling and hence larger amps.
A bigger speaker will give you more bass, and that might give the impression that it plays a bit louder than the smaller bookshelf speaker, even though they have the exact same sensitivity and playing at the same loudness.
But it is not 100% stiff rule - I made speakers which are relatively small - mid bookshelf size , biggest speaker is about only 7 inch (elyptical 3 Watt ) and they can make my room door trembling with realy low bass like 25 Hz.and so they knock. It happens only with one of my privatee recordings which I falsely arranged some 20 years ago and wasnt aware before. Actualy it worries me - I need to put "on" low filter to "silence door", worry also about overloading driver anywany it is strange reality and negates even seems obvious laws.
@Taco Right in point - in half I made them not stiff with vibrating side sufrace 🤪 And other half is stiff enclosure but no sealed type pumping through back wall only very low bass. They look very unusual some may find enough aestetic some may feel like offended on reason they are so strangely looking 😁No matter for me - I want only to listen them
Hopefuly I could match right old speakers -, only one type so far. . It has much more to do even with proper dampnig both inside - this i do always with my experience and of course was corrected few times
not at lowest volumes. The small one could do better
it does makes sense in general and with simplification applied.
but lets take a 6" midwoofer, sensitivity is not affected above a few hundred hz. and if the general rule of measurement is 1khz tone, sensitivity is not affected by box size.
i think that speaker engineers will lower everything else to get more linear bass output from a speaker, thus lowering sensitivity by design.
I can hear minds blowing fuses around the globe....
Thanks Sir for the info
Okay Paul, that explanation was full on phenomenal
great video
Small speakers tend to have less sensitivity and less maximum output power than big speakers because they are limited in the bass by cabinet size and have fewer drivers. Big, efficient speakers will have realistic dynamics with small amps that small speakers can’t achieve, even with a big amp. Subwoofers can help close the gaps.
Sound quality is not determined by the size as we know... small or big can sound awesome with the same high quality system components
It depends on the room and it's acoustics which speaker is the perfect match and your silly gear can't change that
@@Harald_Reindl Room shape matters regarding level of lowest produced bass . The rest is in design and application of driver and enlosure . And speaker plus enclosure play as parts of electronic gear so we cant exclude anything.
That is popular misleading - people who hear geat acoustic in recording assume and confuse it with room. They would state they hear ceiling reflections, they asy it sounds "deep" and so on. according to instant impression . We have to switch to worse speakers to proof them it is not room acoustic but unusual gear.
@@Mikexception you are well known for not knowing anything my little audiofool
Speakers are sort of voltage driven and depending on the impedance curve, the power varies through the frequency band. Usually much less power is needed at higher frequencies, and you can see that as higher impedance which yield lower current thus lower power. To produce lots of deep bass in a large speaker or subwoofer you need lots of power.
Right but only for those who at first love lots of deep bass. Even it is popular demand , power is not everybodys obligation. Most listeners have 50-100 W in dysposition while they load amplifier up to 2 - 3 Watts and only for short time
@Douglas Blake Yes. The reason bigger speakers need more power is that generally lower frequencies require more power (not more voltage) for the same SPL and larger speakers are usually designed to output more energy at lower frequencies. A tweeter doesn't need 100s of Watts (most tweeters will fry at just 10s of Watts) but a subwoofer does for the same SPL.
@Douglas Blake It has also to do with resonance or decay, yes. The impedance curve for a linear speaker reveals how effective power is translated to audio output and a peak of high impedance means you need little power for the same SPL at that frequency but it also means the speaker decays slowly as the system is resonating like a sort of spring. I like servo subwoofers for their ability to circumvent this issue.
I see it as the bigger woofer being able to create lower-deeper bass without over-taxing a much smaller woofer. Priorities and consequences.
One thing is certain. Sound waves rely on the movement of air. A 12" or 15" woofer in a large enclosure can move a substantially larger volume of air than a 6" or 8" woofer in a smaller enclosure, resulting in more natural, less contrived bass response.
Right on!
Tears ago a friend doubted me when I phoned that I had used a transistor radio's headphone jack and a cable to drive a single (used) Klipschorn to a reasonable volume . The speaker had a sensitivity of 104 dB and the radio's amplifier couldn't have had more than 1/10 Watt output as the built-in speaker was rated at 150mW max . Sound wasn't great . but better than the earphone .
Back when the Klipschorn was designed, 5-10 watt amps were what was available, and Paul Klipsch want to be able to hear the full power of a symphony orchestra with an amplifier like that. And he succeeded. At some point, he got the idea that "if it moves, it distorts", meaning that the less the driver moves, the lower the distortion produced. This drove him to try to maximize the efficiency and sensitivity of all his speakers, so they need very little amplifier power, but can retrieve the faintest details in the music, because it takes so little power to drive the drivers. Sometimes this means that their bass response is limited, like with the La Scalas, but their midrange and upper bass is amazing, and a good subwoofer or two can do a great job of supplying the bottom two or three octaves. BTW, the Klipschorn has been in production for 75 years, longer than any other speaker by a long way, so Paul got it right, all the way back in 1946. The speaker went into production in 1948, and the latest ones look a lot like the first ones, but the sound is improved, of course, with modern drivers and crossovers, and 75 years of engineering upgrades and updates in them.
It really comes down to how much air you’re moving😂
@Douglas Blake 👏
A big speaker can in theory play louder on a smaller amp than a small speaker if sensitivity is about the same. But a bigger speaker driver should also have more power to have more control of the driver at loud volumes. So there are two sides of this. Power is always good to have more than enough of in a system.
But in general it would require more power to get a small driver to play as loud as a bigger driver. But it depends a bit on various other factors too.
Sensivity is rated usually at 1kHz.
It says nothing about bass or treble.
Usually ppl think about the amount of bass when thinking about sensivity.
More surface and mass of membrane means less control. Strong magnetic field means high control. Highest control = big magnet in small speaker.
@@jareknowak8712 It's just a peak SPL rating at 1watts and 1meter distance so if anyone belive it has anything to do with bass or treble they really missed the basics.
Higher mass yes. But that does not equal bigger size. I bigger driver can have menbrane with less mass than a smaller one and if the power is encreased the control also encrease. So depending on alot of factors a good 10 inch driver can and up having less mass and move quicker and more controlled than a badly built 6 inch driver despite having more surface area and moves more air.
A quality built driver with a strong magnetic field combined with headroom in power = great controll almost regardless of the driver size actually. It's just like cars.. A big car can be just as fast or even faster in a drag race as a small one. Just needs more engine or even just reduce more weight on the bigger car to achieve the same result.
Thanks for the answer Paul! Marius from the Netherlands here
So connecting small speakers to skinnier amps and big ones to things like mcintosh and D'Agostino. (Like you often see) doesnt make sense right? Brands might do it to show what their flagship models are.
Yes but the freight train in the larger speakers is in the woofers and more so in trying to start and stop them effectively with out stressing the amp.. That takes power and control. Also with all those fast changes, doesn't the impedance change? So usually the high end amps can deal with impedances down to 1 or 2 ohms and control those drivers with ease.
Bigger dampening factor in the amp will mean better control of the cone. Isn't this independent of watts?
@@user-od9iz9cv1w watts has nothing to do with it. The power supply and it's implementation down the chain has everything to do with it. Dampening factor is important. But an amp with a high dampening factor does not mean it will "sound good". My Hegel has a higher dampening factor than my Luxman which has a lower dampening factor but they are completely different in sound/performance, with the better being the Luxman.
"A monster speaker, the size of me...."
Hey now......
Yeah but the aspen are 4 ohm not 8 ohm. See John Devores video on sensitivity. Real sensitivity of the aspen are about 84db if I'm correct?
**looks at comments**
**learns more**
Hi Paul, will PS audio ever produce an affordable bookshelf speaker, something comparable in price to say the sprout, maybe between $500 & $1000 ?
no. most companies are too greedy to sell to the poor
There don't exist any bookshelf speaker and no speaker at all should stand on a bookshelf
@@Harald_Reindl I get that, I would use speaker stands
The screamer in an alarm system makes big noise in a small unit.
My LS50 Metas with the KC62 subwoofer is arguably one of the best “sounds” available at @3K and under.
Bro , can you post a video on active TRI amping
Bottom line is this. It always comes down to the question of all time, BASS.
to go with a 2.1 system or to go with a 2.0 system with larger drivers. It's basically is all about moving air.
Period. I always go with quality over the big loud cheap crap that's out there.
Over the years I've went with 2.1 systems. Don't go cheap, go with a sealed 10 or 12 inch subwoofer like the
1000 sb
if you see my other comment in the electromagnetic speaker UA-cam PS video, an electromagnetic speaker easily achieves 100dB sensitivity or more, with an underhung long travel design with full linearity for the whole throw.
This would seem the place to go if you were serious because the sensitivity greatly reduces the amount amplifier you have to pay for (and pay to run, but 100W vs 10W in electricity costs is literally a cent or two an hour, ignoring amplifier efficiency, still if you are class A and green...)
I would think this a topic to re-explore in much greater depth for the serious audiophile.
One example, see EMS speakers from France.
Sensitivity @ 1 watt is a misconception on how the drivers respond. Sensitivity should be rated 1 watt @ the speakers freq, response. Would also give you a better perception on how it may sound.
"Fiat clown car" 😂
Larger speakers are suited to larger rooms; smaller speakers to smaller rooms.
Hmmm...a one dB dofference is based on logarithmic, not linear, differenes...
Totem makes small speakers that sound big!
Your analogy is flawed and is only applicable to sealed box speakers. Everything goes out the proverbial window with ported, transmission line, dipole, open-baffle, etc..
My very tiny Elac BS403 are harder for my amplifier than my big and heavy Elac FS507 both because of lower absolute lowest impedance and lower sensitivity.
My Elac BS403 goes down to 3.2 ohm as lowest and my Elac FS507 goes down to 3.4 ohm as lowest.
Usually 4 Ohm rated speakers go below 3 Ohm, often 2.5 Ohm.
The same driver in a bigger enclosure needs less power to get the same output as a smaller enclosure.
Like car engines, no substitute for cubic inches
This isnt a realistic explanation. A larger speaker, will tend to have more drivers, and much larger drivers. As such... you will need more power, to drive these larger drivers, to their maximum potentials. The biggest difference is often not in the tweeters and mids... because these do not have to be that big, to produce loud sound output. Its the Woofer, where the biggest difference, tends to be.
A 3" woofer, isnt going to be as loud as an 8" woofer !!! Likewise, if you put the same amount of power that the 8" Woofer can handle... into a 3" woofer... that 3" woofer will be destroyed / fried.
Now... if you use the same 3" woofer between a 1 cubic foot box... and a 4 cubic foot box... SURE... they will both have the same power requirements, and will both play about the same loudness. The larger sized box Might be able to produce a much lower bass sound, depending on the design... but thats about it.
The biggest issue with smaller sized woofers, is their lack of depth in bass output. There are tricks used, such as adding artificial sounding fake-bass "Tuned-Ports". But in general, if you are using the same high quality drivers, but at a much larger diameter speaker cone... you are going to get a LOT deeper bass output potentials. (that said, there are many really poorly made large sized woofers, that have horrible bass and accuracy issues).
Also, there are in fact really small speaker drivers, that can handle a MASSIVE amount of power. I have a pair of 70s bookshelf speakers that have 8" woofers in them... and a single 8" driver, probably weighs more than three 12" drivers, from my previous 90s era speakers. Why? These 8" drivers use much stronger magnets, and much stronger voice coils... which result in a Much greater sound quality. That said... such powerful drivers are rarely seen in smaller sized speakers... due to the ECO-Radicals, as well as the utter Ignorance of the general masses.
I will say this... that while my old speakers could not play as loud as my modern speakers... they sounded so much better, that I didnt even care. Those modern speakers, were quickly put out on the curb, for trash pickup... as that is what they were. Low spec, low quality, Eco-Trash. When you hear how music is Supposed to actually sound, you can never go back.
Note: Having stronger power requirements, doesnt always mean louder output. With my old 70s speakers, for example... the stronger magnets and stronger voice coils, are used to move the speakers movement with far more precision and control.... for far less potential in playback distortions. They are also a "Sealed" speaker... which produces far more accurate and Natural sounding bass... compared to ported speakers. Sealed speakers require much more power, to be able to deal with air compression forces, inside of the speaker.
PA / Concert speakers are very Efficient (and thus, can be very loud), but that comes at the cost of superior near-distortion-free Cone control.
good 👍🏼
There is one detail which I often feel is omitted. SPL it is measured sound level in 1 meter distance from membrane but measured in silence chamber or open air or super good treated room. In typical situations reflections provide that even we as listeners move back next meter which should result by 8 times (almiost 6 dB) less the reflections alow sound level to be not much lower. This applies to not big room and not much treated.
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@@lekmannen9990 👍
@@geddylee501 👍
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All you need is 30 Watt RMS for any loudspeaker anyway. 💪
Do you think hey 30 W RMS amplifier will drive Magnaplaner 20.1’s properly? Somehow I think you’re incorrect.
@@stimpy1226 It is a bit of a joke, but a 30 Watt amplifier with a great stable power supply can not drive a Magnaplaner, but good? Would be a nice test.
Just like my NAD D3020 for now, it is only 30 Watt but drives vintage B&w Dm2a with ease.
WRT sensitivity there's no argument - X Watts @ 1m for the same sensitivity rating gets you the same SPL - that's what the sensitivity measure is. The larger speaker probably has more mass (more material, bigger voice coils, more air resistance) so, even though you get sufficient displacement of air to achieve the same SPL, you need to overcome the momentum of the mass of the speaker. Controlling the speaker throughout its many oscillations across a wide range of frequencies present in music is important. Perhaps watch Paul @ PS Audio discuss "damping factor" in ua-cam.com/video/sokGmNo12RI/v-deo.html&ab_channel=PSAudio.
i have 5.25 inch drivers and they peak each at 400 watts and 200 watts rms which is more watts than most speakers with just one driver 🤣, they are also the loudest in my system besides my sub woofers
Who cares? That crap has nothing to do with quality
@@Harald_Reindl uhm they are rated at 4 ohms and sensitivity around 90 something there spec is good, the more wattage the clearer the sound, all I was trying to say is companies don’t put the best drivers in speakers only after market drivers are better
@@shangrilaladeda "the more watts the clearer the sound" is uneducated nonsense
@@Harald_Reindl no it’s not, the louder it plays the clearer the sound, low watts speakers are a scam and a way to rip off the public, most companies including this one scams the public nearly every time they sell. If the poor can afford it than it’s not a scam
Big vs Small Loudspeakers or Softspeakers ??? 🤣🤣🤣
By Fiat '' clown'' car I expect you meant to say..Fiat Cinquecento? :)
...probably 500, or even 126 :)
WAIT WAIT, so you're saying that, technically, small speakers are quieter because they have to be put in smaller boxes, which increases the back pressure??? Whaaat
Small speakers have a syntetic signatur, big speakers you feel every groundstep and its signatur too the concert is real.
The car audio scam industry is VERY bad about playing games with numbers. Some car audio subwoofers have sensitivity ratings down in the 80-something db range, and yet they have power handling ratings over 1000 watts. Let's play that out. If the sensitivity is 90 db then at 1000 watts, the output is 120 db. But you could have another, much efficient subwoofer, one with a sensitivity of 100 db, and it only takes 100 watts to get 120 db. But because that sub would likely be advertised as having a power handling capacity of around a hundred, maybe 200 watts, the not well educated buyer who is impressed by numbers that he doesn't understand is going to probably want to buy a 1000 watt amp and the 1000 watt rated speaker instead of a 100 watt amp and 100 watt rated subwoofer that delivers exactly the same volume level.
And then there's the half educated buyer, who thinks he can put the more sensitive (100 db rated sensitivity) speaker together with the 1000 watt amp and get 130 decibels....but that just blows up the speaker.
Why is the large French fries at McDonald’s $4.59?
Ah, but why then do big speakers sound big and small speakers sound small?
Back to reality though your going to put the bigger speakers in a bigger room so you need more power.
Very good explanation
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Big speaker is big sound ,not loud ....is hi end
But then you risk bottoming out your woofer....
well a human can self power a train I've not seen a human self power a car 😂
My gf says bigger is better
@2:50 "...little, tiny, Fiat clown car"
Unlike our host, most folks cannot afford a Tesla Model S.
He did not mention it bc of the money.
@@jareknowak8712 Calling someone's car a "clown car" is insulting countless people who worked their butts off to pay for that car.
No one likes to have their car's looks insulted. No one likes to have any of their property insulted. And the more sweat a person puts in to earning the ownership of their property makes such an insult all the worse.
If our host is with friends of equal prosperity, and they want to take jabs at each other, that is all well and good, as those folks can buy a Fiat with piss money. But to publicly make fun of people that purchased Fiats is simply wrong.
I do not believe that our host intended to insult anyone. But our host lives in a bubble. He comes across as down to Earth, but he is not. He occasionally slips with revealing comments.