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High efficiency vs low efficiency loudspeakers. minimalist approach

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vintage4

Active Member
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Read an article recently on Decware about high efficiency loudspeakers . The author claims the fewer parts in a x-over network and the higher a speakers efficiency the more detail it's able to extract from your music source . If this is true a speaker such as the Dynaco A25 or EPI-100 with their single capacitor crossover network should offer a supremely musical experience , highly detailed . Especially when compared to a speaker like the Kef 103.2's with over 20 parts in its xover . Speakers like the Kef 103.2's should sound veiled due to their efficiency and complex xover networks . The more complex and the greater the parts counts of an audio piece the more it's prone to veiling of detail in reproduced sound . Just regurgitating what I read and would like input on listener experiences with this minimalist approach to audio . Is their any scientific validity to this minimalist approach ? Comments appreciated .
 
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Efficiency rating does not determine how complex a crossover will be.

As far as the claim there is more detail in speakers with simpler crossovers... I'm not buying it.
 
I am by no means an expert, but it seems the vast majority of speakers I am drawn to are low efficiency speakers. I don't think the Thiel, Vandersteen, MartinLogan, Quad, , etc etc etc are lacking in detail.
Seems there are pretty much 2 camps - one is the low power tube amps with high efficiency speakers and the other is the low efficiency speakers with high current amps.
I would say neither side is wrong, as in everything audio, there are just a whole bunch of different paths to get to the same destination.
Seems I am on the low efficiency path and like the amp killer speakers.

I would have to say I disagree with the guy's premise if that is truly what he said
 
I agree with donberry. Effeciency in and of itself doesn't have much to do with crossover complexity. High efficiency speakers are usually horns or horn loaded. That pretty much rules them out for me as I've never met a horn or horn loaded speaker I like. I really like the sound of SET's but high powered SET's are way out of my price range. All the speakers that I like and either own or aspire to own are medium and low efficiency types. If I could afford them I'd use Kron or Wavac >100 Watt SET's.
 
I like them both. I ran stats for 30 years and loved them. Now I run some Decware speakers and love them too. But with the Dewares I can afford alot better electronics and that helps a whole lot. The Decware have 1 cap to the ribbon. I also run a crossoverless fullrangers. There really is something to little of no Xover. What uou read is mostly true.
There are some expensive Xovers out there that seem they are not there. But that is why they are expensive.
 
Makes no sense at all.

Overall efficiency is primarily determined by how the woofer is loaded. Acoustic suspension eats power. Horn loading is efficient. Ports and transmission line loading is in-between.

Midrange and tweeters can be reasonably efficient without horn loading.
 
I totally agree about no crossover being the best crossover. I too have one cap to my esl's. From 85Hz up they are crossover free. My sub amps are fed from 85Hz down by an electronic crossover. The aural damage the active crossover causes is not very audible with the frequencies it's working with. It's so minimal I used a Paradigm X-30 for a number of years. Recently I changed to a Behringer CX2310 mostly because of the increased flexibility.

It's been my experience that inexpensive electronic crossovers cause some veiling, a slight loss of high end sparkle, and a shrinkage of the sound stage. Using only a very high quality capacitor in the feed to my panels is audibly a lot better than any reasonably priced crossover.
 
I don't buy the explanation either. Speaker sensitivity is in part the function of the speaker itself and in part how its loaded in the system. It has nothing to do with how well it responds to so called micro detail. What has far more impact is the quality of the devices used. A capacitor that is close to its rated value under all operating conditions will produce a better sounding system then one who's value changes with applied voltage, current, temperature, etc. So, you can improve your sound quality by simplifying the circuit and thereby use fewer mediocre parts or you can improve the quality of both the parts used and design used. I would submit that the greater correlation to how much detail you get is more about the combination of design and parts quality then the number of parts.

Shelly_D
 
I've had an opportunity to listen to some some SET driven HE speakers.

I do admit high efficiency speakers, minimal or no crossover and SET power can sound very good. IMO the big deal is the SET amplifier and the minimal or no crossover. If people are hearing more detail it's the SET amplifiers and less masking from the passive crossover. They (SET's) sound really good to me but not good enough to give up esl's. Yes, there are a few SET's with enough power to drive the kind of speaker I like. All of that group are way beyond my wallet. What the world needs is an inexpensive >100 Watt SET. I realize inexpensive is subjective so how about $1000 for a mono block.
 
That Decware guy is naturally gonna tout what he makes and sells. He made very simple low powered tube amps because he could and he makes and touts high sensitivity speakers because they work well with his low powered amps. It's business and as such his statements don't signify any more than my parrot or lap dog.
 
vintage4 said:
Read an article recently on Decware about high efficiency loudspeakers . The author claims the fewer parts in a x-over network and the higher a speakers efficiency the more detail it's able to extract from your music source . If this is true a speaker such as the Dynaco A25 or EPI-100 with their single capacitor crossover network should offer a supremely musical experience , highly detailed . Especially when compared to a speaker like the Kef 103.2's with over 20 parts in its xover . Speakers like the Kef 103.2's should sound veiled due to their efficiency and complex xover networks . The more complex and the greater the parts counts of an audio piece the more it's prone to veiling of detail in reproduced sound . Just regurgitating what I read and would like input on listener experiences with this minimalist approach to audio . Is their any scientific validity to this minimalist approach ? Comments appreciated .
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I'd have to disagree. I have a pair of Thiel CS 3.6 that have 38 parts in the crossover. They are anything but veiled/non-revealing. By all accounts they are a "brutally" revealing speaker.
 
IMO the sound quality of a speaker is determined more by how well a design is implemented and the Build quality than by the design itself. That said there are characteristics of each design that must be dealt with, so depending on the sound we want, one might choose a particular design that best suites their requirements.

There are many fine speakers out their with many design aproaches. Some have simple X-Overs, others with complex ones. There are 2-way and 3 -4 way with great sound. Some use a transmission line aproach, or passive radiators to enhance bass, others a simple ported cabinet does a fine job. It all comes down to how well the design is exacuted, and the build quality of the speaker.

That said, my favourite Speaker is the Referenca 3A Grand Vienna 4 way, as it would happen it uses no X-Over, a simple capacitor on the tweeters protects them from bass, The other drivers are connected directly to the Power Amp. A vintage favourite of mine is the Pioneer HPM 100's. I believe they are 5 way with I'm guessing a rather complex X-over with 2 attinuators. It uses a 12" Woofer and they sound amazing. My own Energy Pro 22 Monitors are a 2 way design with a 7" woofer and sound amazing too. Its bass is outstanding...period, not just for a 7" Driver. They benifited greatly when I connected them to a Bryston Amp.
 
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10 different people may like 10 different speakers. The properly designed crossover simply sends the appropriate frequency band to the intended driver and may contain extra components to keep the response flat across the driver's particular frequency range. It is not going to hide anything. The speaker's performance has a lot to do with its drivers and cabinet design as well. I've heard fantastic complex xover and simple xover designs just as I've heard crappy sounding designs of both.
 
DENNYDOG said:
Efficiency rating does not determine how complex a crossover will be.
Click to expand...

Indeed, that is true. HOWEVER, it is worth noting that some speakers use woofers with intentionally well-controled rolloffs to lower the crossover component count. Those drivers tend, in the main, to be lower in efficiency, because damping adds mass.

DENNYDOG said:
As far as the claim there is more detail in speakers with simpler crossovers... I'm not buying it.
Click to expand...

Actually, there is some truth to that statement. But of course it's not at all what the marketing blurb implies. The extra "detail" one hears from such speakers is simply response anomalies resulting from the use of efficient (which often means somewhat raggedy native performance, especially at the ends of their intended bandwidth) drive-units with inadequately-designed (aka "minimalist") crossovers. So yes, there are parts of the spectrum emphasized (generally, upper mids) that correlate with detail perception. And because they sound different, a person can legitimately prefer that sound. That it's not what was actually encoded in the recording is neither here nor there if someone likes that particular emphasis.

However, it's unfair to tie all efficient speakers with that brush. The very best speakers, IMO, combine high-fidelity design/voicing (perhaps with a top-octave rolloff), constant directivity over a fairly narrow angle, high efficiency, and crossovers designed to contain no more (or fewer) parts than required to achieve the desired voicing.

Look at the GedLee line as an example of what can be done by people who know what they're doing.

Or some of the bigger Tannoy studio monitors.

Efficiency matters, because low efficiency speakers suffer from power compression at domestic living room SPL. Consider that a speaker that's 6dB less sensitive has to contend with 4x the heat to produce a given SPL. That heat changes the parameters of the drive-units.
 
I take everything stated at Decware with a grain of salt. While some of his designs show that he is creative, none of them that I've heard have shown that he has any expertise.
 
dnewma04 said:
I take everything stated at Decware with a grain of salt. While some of his designs show that he is creative, none of them that I've heard have shown that he has any expertise.
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I concur but, FWIW... oddly, though (and maybe like monkeys and typewriters) he gets lucky sometimes. HIs "Gizmo" for Lowthers actually has earned a surprising amount of respect -- and Lowther lovers are a finicky, nigh-on irrational bunch ;-)

Also FWIW, I have owned a Decware SE-84B "Zen" amp since ca. 1998. At less than 2 wpc, it is not really powerful enough for full-range use with even pretty sensitive speakers (I used it with a 1974 pair of Klipsch Cornwalls) but it does sound pretty good and it is very quiet. It would make a nice tweeter or MR/HF amp in a bi or multiamped system.
 
dnewma04 said:
I take everything stated at Decware with a grain of salt. While some of his designs show that he is creative, none of them that I've heard have shown that he has any expertise.
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What have you heard?

You want to take some stuff with a grain of salt. Go to the Bob Brines sight. Don't forget to read his post in his forum. Some of his statements piss me off. Especially when he talks of his competition.
 
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I like Hi Eff speakers, but as has been stated above, it doesn't have a great deal to do with crossovers. I believe that the more complex a crossover becomes, the more likely it is that the signal can get screwed up.
A first order crossover is the only topography that can pass a sine wave relatively intact, and when you have phase shifts and all the rest that can come out of a higher order crossover, the potential for signal degrading is certainly present. Parts count isn't necessarily a determinate of the "order" of crossover. I believe that the Dunlavy speakers all used 1st order crossovers and they had "a lot" of components.

My personal criteria is: The bare minimum to sound good.
If it improves the sound it's good, if it doesn't seem to make any difference then it's probably not needed.

Best Regards,
TerryO
 
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