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Accurate portrayal of efficiency?


Coytee

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How do you digest this rating of efficiency? Is this an accurate way to represent efficiency or as I seem to recall some comments, is this just using a narrow band since it speaks of midband and high frequency SPLs? And furthermore, what does the (10ms) mean? Microseconds of duration?

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Recommended Amplifier power: 1.5 watts per ch minimum / 500 watts maximum

Sound Pressure Level: 97 db average 100 db peak with a 1.5 watt amplifier; 115 db average, 125db peak (10ms) with a 500 watt amplifier

Mid-band Sound Pressure Levels in a Typical Listening room: 90 db average, 100 db peak with a 1.5 watt amplifier: 115 average, 125 db peak (10 ms) with a 500 watt amplifier.

Maximum High Frequency Sound Pressure Level in a Typical Listening Room (10,000 Hz): 103 db long-term average

Mid-band Power Capacity: 50 watts long-term average: 500 watts peak (10ms)

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It's more of a rating of power-handling with the speaker sensitivity buried in the specs. Basically those speakers (whatever they are) probably have a sensitivity of about 90dB with 1 watt at 1 meter They're saying that a 1.5 watt tube amp can probably put out 3 watts for short periods of time which is where that 100dB peak comes from. The 125dB peak (10ms) means that the speaker can handle 125dB for 10ms...it's basically a thermal limitation on the driver that it can handle 500 watts for that short amount of time (10ms (milliseconds) = 0.1 seconds). (Btw, 500 watts for 125dB also corresponds to about 94dB sensitivity...though it might be slightly higher due to power compression, say around 96dB).

I think they rated the speaker in this manner for someone that plans on bi-amping the system...that way they just match the amp wattage with whatever output they're looking for. They of course picked values that make the speaker appear better than it is. Most people don't want to go through the thinking necessary to realize what the specs are really saying...basically that it's really not going to do 125dB, but will be more like 103dB. I'm guessing the people interested in these speakers are probably jazz or classical listeners so that 103dB is more than enough (these certainly aren't speakers for rocking it out).

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