On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:31:32 +1100, Tat Chan
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 18:37:20 GMT, (Don Pearce)
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:30:06 +0000, Eiron wrote:

And the appalling sound of "103dB efficient speakers"

Hee hee.... I didn't actually want to go there.

But Eiron did place his bet where the smart money goes! Personally,
I've only heard *one* really good speaker with efficiency above
100dB/w/m, and that was the Avantgarde Duo.

sorry, why do highly efficient speakers usually sound bad? Is it because
you need really large cabinet sizes to obtain more bass for highly
efficient speakers?

Partly, since in those types it's *very* difficult to suppress panel
resonances, due to the large panel sizes. High efficiency direct
radiating drivers also tend to have ragged frequency responses and
sever breakup modes, as other engineering qualities are sacrificed in
the drive for high efficiency.

(changing subject)

And while we are on the subject of speaker efficiency, a local hi-fi
store has a pair of traded in Apogee Calipers (*). Would you know if I
need a Krell to drive them, or would an Audiolab 8000S do the job?

They're even less efficient than my Duattas, and are a 3-4 ohm load,
so an 8000S would be red-hot in ten minutes at normal listening
levels! You'll need something that can happily put out 300 watts into
4 ohms indefinitely. You could try a pro-audio unit, Yamaha make some
good ones, the only snag being noise from the fan cooling. Or there's
the big Rotels.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering