Speaker Sensitivity and Efficiency

odyssey

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Folks
I see a huge number of posts where people are trying to generalize speaker pairing with amps in terms of power ratings. I think this leads to complete confusion to the end user especially if this person does not have knowledge about these ratings. Moreover, these ratings are also used as marketing techniques...so here is some useful info to keep in mind.

Speaker sensitivity and efficiency arent the same thing. A decade or two back, speakers were specified as having an efficiency rating, now the players play the sensitivity rating game. The former is more telling. The latter can make a low Z speaker with a 1 ohm dip sound very efficient :mad:

So how do they differ and what do they tell you?
take an example
2.83V into a 8 ohm speaker is 1 W of power - this comes from (V^2)/R, which here comes to (2.83^2)/8 = 1W. Say this results in 87dB from the speaker
For the same 87dB at 2.83V, If I now have a 4 ohm speaker that is dipping to 2 ohms, then I require 4W of power!!

So which is better? :)

cheers
 
Folks
I see a huge number of posts where people are trying to generalize speaker pairing with amps in terms of power ratings. I think this leads to complete confusion to the end user especially if this person does not have knowledge about these ratings. Moreover, these ratings are also used as marketing techniques...so here is some useful info to keep in mind.

Speaker sensitivity and efficiency arent the same thing. A decade or two back, speakers were specified as having an efficiency rating, now the players play the sensitivity rating game. The former is more telling. The latter can make a low Z speaker with a 1 ohm dip sound very efficient :mad:

So how do they differ and what do they tell you?
take an example
2.83V into a 8 ohm speaker is 1 W of power - this comes from (V^2)/R, which here comes to (2.83^2)/8 = 1W. Say this results in 87dB from the speaker
For the same 87dB at 2.83V, If I now have a 4 ohm speaker that is dipping to 2 ohms, then I require 4W of power!!

So which is better? :)

cheers

So, Which Is better?
I dont get it.. :(
 
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