Did you drop a decimal point? Our first home - a 35+ yr old 900sq ft wartime 2bed/1 bath house cost $29,000 in 1975, which was around the time I bought the DQ10s. IIRC the ESL57s that preceded them were at least $100 more several years prior. Not that anyone gives a rip, but the Quad's legendary midrange notwithstanding, I much preferred the DQ10s when driven by Yamaha CA1000.
Well, back in 1970, our three bedroom home in Auckland New Zealand was purchased for around $NZ2,000. The same house sold 10 years later for $NZ79,000
That same home today would be snapped-up for around $NZ1.4m.
I think the variation probably relates to the fact that we have experienced a load of inflation here in NZ - combined with the vagaries of international exchange rates.
That same home today would be snapped-up for around $NZ1.4m.
I think the variation probably relates to the fact that we have experienced a load of inflation here in NZ - combined with the vagaries of international exchange rates.
It is fairly obvious that the link is an abridged version translated for the anglophone hobbyist rather than the full legal german original.
The full german version is available behind a pay wall, you can buy it if you like.
I'd bet the shirt off my back that measurement conditions are clearly defined as it would be rather un-german if they weren't.
Most of you are comparing it to the modern rating of "X dB @ 1meter" driven either by 1W or 2.83V but what it shows is a somewhat older (not THAT ancient in ny case) European rating for home use , and which in fact has way more meaning for an everage consumer; instead of stating an obscure and unusable (for him) logarithmic dB rating, it stated easy to understand and compare RMS watts needed to get the system LOUD at home situations, which 96dB is.
Don´t remember the distance implied but it might be 1 meter, or it might also be the (reverberant) SPL in a typical listening room.
Not a bad rating system at all.
I remember seeing European cabinets showing both in the same label or user manual.
It´s very easy for a user to compare 2 cabinets , one stating 1W sensitivity, other 10 or 30W and instantly knowing "my 5W (single EL84) per channel amp can easily drive one, not the others" and I bet that was the main idea behind it,
EDIT:what Charles Darwin said.
EDIT 2:
It only takes a little Math but is unneeded in this particular case, since the sensitivity is exactly 1W to get 96dB at 1 meter, then modern rating would be impressive 96dB @ 1W @ 1M .
For any doubled power (needed) you would have to substract 3 dB, and so on.
Don´t remember the distance implied but it might be 1 meter, or it might also be the (reverberant) SPL in a typical listening room.
Not a bad rating system at all.
I remember seeing European cabinets showing both in the same label or user manual.
It´s very easy for a user to compare 2 cabinets , one stating 1W sensitivity, other 10 or 30W and instantly knowing "my 5W (single EL84) per channel amp can easily drive one, not the others" and I bet that was the main idea behind it,
EDIT:what Charles Darwin said.
EDIT 2:
It only takes a little Math but is unneeded in this particular case, since the sensitivity is exactly 1W to get 96dB at 1 meter, then modern rating would be impressive 96dB @ 1W @ 1M .
For any doubled power (needed) you would have to substract 3 dB, and so on.
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It is a bit like mpg or L/100km when it comes to fuel consumption in cars.
Both systems make perfect sense in themselves and work equally well in practice but it is a pain in the neck if you want to compare across standards and have to convert one into the other.
Except in this case. This one is easy as JMFahey pointed out, it could have been 8.37W!
Both systems make perfect sense in themselves and work equally well in practice but it is a pain in the neck if you want to compare across standards and have to convert one into the other.
Except in this case. This one is easy as JMFahey pointed out, it could have been 8.37W!
The fact that the 3 dimensional sound field around a loudspeaker changes significantly when measuring as close as 1 meter from the cabinet is an extremely important and accurate point!
There is a distance from any acoustic radiator or system of radiators where complete or "optimum summing" occurs, beyond which the output remains constant other than attenuation due to the inverse square law (-6dB per doubling of distance) and atmospheric effects (absorption, thermal refraction, etc). Atmospheric effects can be ignored because they occur at a material degree far beyond the distance we want to measure loudspeakers intended for home audio systems.
We call the region near a loudspeaker where its polar response changes depending on measurement distance the near field.
Once we move the listener or microphone beyond the near field, the polar response will remain constant other than attenuation with distance. We call this the far field and this is the ideal region in which to accurately characterize loudspeaker behavior.
A good rule-of-thumb to determine the transition distance between near and far fields for an acoustic radiator is 10 times the largest dimension of the radiator. With a typical rectangular loudspeaker cabinet, this would be a diagonal measurement.
In regard to sensitivity measurement, one company I'm aware of (Danley Sound Labs) has chosen what I consider to be an excellent technique given the average size and output capabilities of their loudspeaker systems. They measure at 10 meters at 28.3V and choose the peak of the intended passband as the "1 meter, 2.83V" sensitivity rating. The 10 meter measurement distance reduces SPL by 20dB and 28.3V is 20dB higher than 2.83V. The higher voltage drive also helps to overcome interfering environmental noise, if any, from the measurement.
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Did you notice the frequency range? 28 - 34.000Hz, or 28 - 34Hz. A truly astonishing bandwidth of just 6Hz.
What a difference a typo can make! I just noticed that. I think our German friends were supposed to put a comma after the 34.
What a difference a typo can make! I just noticed that. I think our German friends were supposed to put a comma after the 34.
You might not know that most of Europe uses the dot to signify fractional numbers instead of the coma.
Wrong: that reads as twenty eight to thirty four thousandDid you notice the frequency range? 28 - 34.000Hz, or 28 - 34Hz. A truly astonishing bandwidth of just 6Hz.
Which is the European and Metric way of writing numbers.
Now if you stick to Imperial ways, please be aware that, unlike India, Germany was never a part of the British Empire.
This is scary, especially if you are using numbers to three decimal places.
MAGNAT ALL-RIBBON 6: 96dB Sensitivity = Stated 1,0 W
It only takes a little Math but is unneeded in this particular case said:This 96dB sensitivity rating has proven to be 100% correct!
I recently compared the (allegedly) 96dB efficient 8-ohm MAGNAT ALL-RIBBON 6s to my 96dB efficient 8-ohm KLIPSCH RP-160M monitors. And guess what?
Running one of each speaker as a pair - KLIPSCH on the left channel and MAGNAT on the right - they are perfectly balanced, as far as volume goes.
This confirms to my mind that the (8-ohm) MAGNAT ALL-RIBBON 6 are 96dB Sensitive - which would make the (4-ohm) MAGNAT ALL-RIBBON 2 around 93dB Sensitive.
Given that the simply magnificent KLIPSCH speakers are are a current (2017) design, this speaks volumes for the design and efficiency of the venerable (circa-1987) MAGNATs.
Which do I prefer being driven by my 12w (Into 4, 6 or 8 ohms) LEBEN CS-300F Tube amp??? That's a REALLY tough decision and would probably only come down to listening-room size.
The very full - and slightly deeper - (ported) KLIPSCH bass is probably better suited to a larger room.
The MAGNAT (sealed enclosure) bass is slightly less deep, but perhaps a bit faster.
Like me, everyone likes their bass... the way they like their bass!
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