What is the most efficient speaker?

If you are looking for the MOST efficient, i think that you would have to go with a speaker based upon TAD drivers. TAD is the professional division of Pioneer Japan. They make some ULTRA efficient drivers. While there might be more efficient designs out there, i don't know of any that can do it while maintaining excellent sonics.

I was not fully aware of these until a pretty adventurous "internet buddy" ( Hi Mike !!! ) pointed them out to me in his system. The raw tweeters produce 110 db's @ 1w/1m !!! With his specific horn body attached, they are doing appr 119 db's !!! Their mids are also highly efficient. While woofers are tough to bring up to that level, but you can find several different raw drivers in the 102 - 104 db @ 1W/1m range. Horn loading them can bring that up a few more dB's, leveling the playing field somewhat.

While these drivers are VERY expensive, i know that Klassic Audio Reproductions uses them in their speakers and they do sound fantastic. This is where i was first exposed to TAD's.

As to the Klipsch speakers, a quick trip to their website would probably reveal what is currently being produced. All of their "classic" series speakers are "very high efficiency" designs. These consist of the Heresy, Cornwall, La Scala, Belle and K-Horn.

Be careful of what some folks refer to as high efficiency. They may not necessarily be "high efficiency" but are simply "easy" to drive. This means that they are not reactive, have a relatively smooth impedance curve and aren't "power suckers" due to using very sophisticated crossover designs. Also take note that some speakers DO NOT meet spec and are sometimes a few dB's quieter. Buying something that you think is 93 dB's and then finding out that they are really 90.5 dB's and not quite as easy to drive can be quite confusing and frustrating.

While this is STRICTLY a generic guideline, this is how i break down speaker efficiencies. All of these measurements are based on driving 1 watt @ 1 meter into the speaker with impedance being factored in. Keep in mind that this chart is "relative". Someone running 88 db speakers ( relatively common in sealed designs ) would surely consider 91 db speakers to be "high efficiency". I'm looking at it from the "big picture" as i own speakers that are 104 db's and another set that are about 78 - 79 db's !!!

99 dB's and above = ultra efficiency

95 - 98 dB's = very high efficiency

91 - 94 dB's = high efficiency

88 - 91 dB's = medium efficiency ( most common )

85 - 87 dB's = low efficiency

85 dB's and below = bigtime power suckers

Keep in mind that some "less efficient" speakers will be capable of playing at a higher maximum SPL than speakers that may be more efficient to start off with. This is due to what is known as "compression".

Compression occurs when the volume of the speaker DOES NOT climb in a linear fashion as more power is applied. You will hit a point where the drivers will not play much louder ( level off or "plateau" )unless you "pile drive" it. Instead of translating the incoming power to sound, they begin to absorb the energy as heat. The driver has reached saturation and is now "compressing" the amplitude of the signal. Once this occurs, damage to the driver is not too far down the road.

Hope this helps.... Sean
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Well... depends on what you are looking for. The Cary site says that your amp puts out 80 Watts (or 50 in Triode mode) which is probably going to be too much power for the "high" efficiency speakers listed here. If you throw a 107 dB efficient speaker on that, you will probably not be terribly satisfied with what you hear. High efficiency horns like the Avantegardes are best off mated to a SET amplifier... otherwise unless your electronics are incredibly clean, you will hear all sorts of muck in the line as you throw more power at them. Also, keep in mind that horn speakers have a very particular "love it or hate it sound" to them.

Now, what I don't understand about the people making posts here is that why would anyone be mating a $3K integrated amplifier with a $10-30K pair of speakers? It seems to me just a little out of balance to me.

Thank you for the last paragraph slartibartfast; my sentiments. I didn't realize the amp had that much power either. Which would make most speakers really a fine match-the more accurate the better. If there was anything to pay attention to in selecting a speaker outside of one's preference, given that its a tube amp, I would pay attention to the impedence curve of the loudspeaker to make sure it wasn't abnormally low or any sharp dips in any places, and the efficiency. But it should drive most things fine. In the end it really only depends how loud one wants to play their music. The focal and raven/phl systems can be done for <$2k.