Is the most efficient speaker the best speaker?

So what is the best speaker then?

And what is it's efficiency?

And how big is it?

And how much does it cost?

Sorry,these things matter to me so the ability to fill an arena with sound best does not necessarily make it the best speaker for my application.

How about yours?

More like stereo killed off hi eff. Tossing in the new air suspension designs increasing power availability it wasn't sound quality but cost and size that did the big horns in. 1st stereo broad casts where 1 channel AM 1 FM those early adopters bought 2 systems to enjoy stereo. Homes where smaller then and housing 2 large horns became a problem for many. Like those who tossed there stereos for new HT in a box did they step up in music quality or down? Did those who moved to MP3 selling off there cds. Or those who sold off lp collections to move to digital. To me tech isn't necessarily about improving quality.

Speaker manufacturing has evolved. Technology has improved in the form of materials, software and the equipment that drivers are made from. All along, manufactures have done their best to produce a quality product. The solid state amp came to be commercially produced in the late 1950's is not what developed speaker technology. People wanting to build the best did. In the 1960's, raw parts manufacturers had a hard time maintaining 20% accuracy from part to part, in the 1970's we saw a huge improvement to more like 10%, today parts can be produced at under 5% deviations off manufacturing lines and better on hand made items. Magnet materials have improved, voice coil formers have improved, tighter tolerances for voice coil gaps have improved, flux has improved, linearity and excursion limits have improved, better materials for cones, horns and diaphrams. There have been changed in mylar materials in planers, there have been improvements in electrostatics, there has been improvements in damping on all levels... Speakers have evolved as technology has improved. The formula's for highly efficient speakers are the same today as they were in 1960, its just that today, we have much better tools and technology and materials to produce a more accurate product. That doesn't mean, nothing of old is good, accurate or even great, it just means that today, we can do it more consistantly.

This thread is a troll post and nothing more, has zero merit for discussion. I imagine you suffer from aliteracy as you would have never posted such an ASSanine thread.

Timlub and Unsound, back in the 1950s the tube was the only game in town. Its no mystery that tube power is expensive- by the late 1950s the most powerful amps for home use made only about 60 watts per channel.

Now it should not be a matter of proof (Unsound) but common knowledge that the closer tolerances used in high efficiency speakers results in greater reactivity (reverse EMF) from said driver. Timlub, I am including you in this post as the fact of the matter is that during the 1950s the higer efficiency speakers that existed out of necessity required greater precision to manufacture.

However with the advent of the transistor inexpensive amplifier power became available. There were two things that were direct results: 1) amplifier manufacturers realized they could make more money, as the transistor amps cost less to produce, 50% less or more, yet they could charge at least 90% of what they did for tube amps of the same power. 2) speaker manufacturers realized a similar benefit; by reducing precision they lost efficiency, but the cost of the drivers fell by 90%.

Its like I said, just follow the money. The advent of transistor amps and lower efficiency speakers was not about advancing the art (although the marketing certainly made it look that way) it was about *making money*.

Unsound, if you want proof that I did not make up this idea of the Power Paradigm, look for a Fisher 55-A amplifier. Here's the Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fisher+55-A+amplifier

Take a look at the fifth hit (but look at the other links too). Its a Youtube video, but in the photo provided by Google, you see a control. The control is marked 'constant voltage' at one extreme 'constant power' in the middle and 'constant current' at the other extreme. Constant power is a zero feedback state in a higher output impedance amplifier. If I made it up, how come Fisher put that term on an amplifier made the same year I was born? The simple fact is the idea existed 55 years ago, and was the state of most tube amps, and speakers had to be designed to work with them since they were the only game in town.

Such speakers like Altec, JBL, Klipsch and the like all have midrange and tweeter controls. Now most people *these days* think that those controls are there to allow the speaker to accommodate the room, but this is not true. The controls are there to accommodate the power response of the amplifier! Once you realize that fact, once I realized it, the reality of how things were done back then became more clear: it was the Power Paradigm.

This is why I recommended you look at the history of audio.