Just a general question on speakers for y'all out there: would a 95db speaker tend to be brighter (the tweeter stands out more) than say a 90db one?
I was asking around on a couple of car audio forums about two Infinity car speakers that I am looking at to replace the stock speakers in my Camry, the more expensive one has about an extra 3-4 db of sensitivity. Since I do not plan on adding an external amp or buying an aftermarket head unit, I figured that the higher sensitivity one would make the most of the stock HU.
Good plan, until someone posted that the 95db model would just be brighter...first time I'd ever heard this.
Yet when I think about it, maybe it does make sense. I've never liked Klipsch horns with their +100db sensitivity, while Tim's Lings which can be wonderfully warm are very low sensitivity, around 85db. Ditto for the Polk LSi series.
Is there such a thing as a "warm" speaker with high sensitivity?
Just FYI, the two Infinity models were the Reference 9612i and the Kappa 692.7i --- if anyone has any car audio experience I'd love to hear your thoughts. The car audio forum side has been kind of dead.
I've never liked Klipsch horns with their +100db sensitivity
You've probably never heard the higher end ones. It might be fair to say that it's more likely that an inexpensive higher sensitivity speaker will sound brighter than an inexpensive low sensitivity speaker (because sensitivity can be traded for a smoother frequency response). I don't think this necessarily applies to more expensive products. I doubt you'd qualify Klipschorns as bright if you heard them properly setup.
"Is there such a thing as a "warm" speaker with high sensitivity?"
Not that I'm particularly qualified to completely answer this, but I'll give it a shot.
Most any speaker with a fairly high sensitivity I can think of is horn loaded. Because of their narrow dispersion pattern, the sound is fairly intense in the sweet spot. In the case of a HT speaker, if one sits off axis a bit, that may help the problem.
In the case of car audio, one's ears are typically heavily off axis of the car's speakers. The car's acoustics should also help a bit (big padded seats, etc).
Unfortunately my car audio knowledge is a bit limited but AFAIK the Infinity Kappa series is pretty good, although a bit pricey. Just stay away from Sony!
No, 95dB is not, as a system, an ultra high effeciency speaker. Above 100dB @ 1 watt, I would say, begins the ultra high efficiency territory.
If you are speaking sbout a speaker system; woofer, Xo and tweeter minimum, the difference between the two speakers' efficiency specs can be eaten up by other factors. On a raw numbers basis only, the 3dB difference is more than noticeable in level change between the two speakers. It probably is equivalent to turning up your volume control two notches. Many volume controls are 1.5 dB steps. Some also vary the amount of change relative to the position of the volume control. A purely log scale VC will be the same step throughout its range.
Brightness and sensitivity are two different concepts. The former has to do with the sonic characteristics of the speaker (typically references high frequency reproduction) and the latter has to do with how efficiently a speaker uses power. I've known efficient speakers of various ilks: some bright, some not so bright. The same can be said of power hungry speakers. Just depends.
Since the average sensitivity of today's consumer loudspeakers is about 87-89dB @ 1watt, there aren't even that many well known speakers which approach the 93dB level. When they do, I would have to say, the companies which produce them tend to have a somewhat brighter sound.
If, however, you look into the market for speakers to be used with S.E.T. amplifiers, you will find many that sport high sensitivity specs and have a response which tends to the warmer side of sound. But, I can think of none of those speakers that are what most would call famously well known.
There have been very efficient speakers from the past which have not tended to the brightness of a Klipsch or JBL product. The Bozak Concert Grands, which are reviewed in the current Stereophile, were known to be a warmer sound than many of their competitors. Some of this warmth was due to the fact many speakers rolled off above 12kHz in order to reduce the amount of record surface noise. What to make of a speaker such as the Bozak? Well, the other companies used the same source material. I would say it was, as it is now, merely a preference of the designers.
One other thing to keep in mind would be the propensity of sealed box speaker systems over the last forty plus years. Many of the "famous" speaker lines such as AR, Advent, KEF, etc, built acoustic suspension speakers for their inherent bass qualities. There was a school of design known as the East Coast sound which dealt almost exclusively in AS designs. The BBC in England used mainly AS enclosures. Given the difference in how the rear wave of the woofer is used in an AS vs. a ported enclosure, you will always sacrifice 3dB with the AS designs. So, over the last few decades, many of the famous speaker lines have been inherently less efficient. Where as companies such as Klipsch and JBL have always been efficient and generally not described as "warm".
I am intrigued by DA's suggestion that in a car, what might be "bright" in a home listening environment might be reduced due to the fact that your ears are off-axis and you have all these plush seats to absorb the sound.
Keep in mind though that people are describing these speakers in a car audio application, Eddie. Of course if your speakers are in a different location in your car than the other reviewer/opinionated person, your results will vary greatly.
Hmm, I have no idea what the other reviewer had, but yeah none of my Camry's speakers are directed straight at my head though the Kappas I think have a swivel tweeter that allows you to direct it towards you.
Quite honestly, I'm not sure what the question is any longer. I thought we were just discussing the sensitivity spec vs. the "brightness" of a speaker.
As to car audio, I'm not the expert on that. I stayed away from the car audio racks as much as possible though several stores I sold in also sold car audio. There were way too many Paul's coming into the car audio section for my tastes.
Quite a few speakers designed for car applications will seem overly bright and muddy if you use them in a home environment. The top end is designed to compensate not only for placement but for the road noise that will be generated within the car. This is one reason you see systems designed by Bose, JBL, Mark Levinson, etc for specific luxury cars. They electronically EQ the system to compensate for the problems of a car's interior. Most cars have a suck out between 100 to 200Hz. If you don't compensate for that in the design of the driver, you'll have to compensate with the elctronics.
If this question does have to do with using a car speaker inside, you will probably have a very tight sweet spot for listening as the tweeters in car equipment are typically designed for power handling and not dispersion. The interior of most cars will bounce the signals around enough that dispersion is not a worry in a car system.
> There were way too many Paul's coming into the car audio section for my tastes.
LOL!
> The top end is designed to compensate not only for placement but for the road noise that will be generated within the car.
Good to hear that, and it makes sense. The Camry is a wonderfully quiet car inside, which was one of its main selling points, but I'm sure there's still some ambient road noise.
So the rough conclusion that I'm taking away from all this is that with a car speaker that would be considered quite bright at home might be just fine in a car because it's offset by road noise and the car's environmental factors...
In other words I should be ok going with a car speaker that has 95db instead of 92db sensitivity.
Too many pauls??? I think car audio junkies are virtually all punk kids.
If they were "Pauls" as you suggest, they'd be somewhere else, and not in the Kiddie Car section. Not until the kiddies move out of the bedroom in their parents house and buy their own house will they 'graduate' to HT.
"In other words I should be ok going with a car speaker that has 95db instead of 92db sensitivity."
If you are still asking the question like that, you have missed the intention of many of the answers on this thread.
Paul - You were beginning to do so well. Did you just run out of anything intelligent to say after just two posts?
ed v.
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Ed, the advisor at Crutchfield told me to go for db's in the 90's. I have the Infinity Kappa 50.5 cs component speakers in my Toyota 4x4. I ran them with my stock Toyota Stereo and they sounded great. I paired them with 4in Boston Acoustics because I already owned them. Then I ran them with a Sony X-plod deck and they really came to life. I listen to the Eagles to Three Doors Down and everything in between sounds awesome. Great for acoustic music. No complaints. Hope this helps.
thanks for your input, I think component speakers are a whole other league though. I have some Polk component speakers in my truck and they do sound great, esp. with a PPI amp behind them.
BTW, were the Kappa 50.5s two or four ohms?
Anyways I wish you best of luck with the Sony X-plod deck though. I've read on several car audio forums of a lot of folks having reliability problems with them.
ed v.
Unregistered guest
Posted on
My Sony X-plod deck is 3.5 yrs old and not one problem on my daily driver. And I like to crank it up too........good luck to you..
