Best way to highest efficiency?

[DaveCan]

Probably something like his avatar pic or close

[Steve Eddy]

Originally Posted by rjbond3rd

Sounds pretty sweet. If that's your make-do system, I can't imagine what your ultimate system would be.

GM's always done a good job of making others feel... how shall we say... inadequate.

se

[a.wayne]

Originally Posted by GM

Greets!

Hmm, too small a room, too short a listening distance is when you need to resort to headphones.

105 dB transient peak capability isn't extremely loud unless you are listening to highly compressed music, so assuming he wants to at least occasionally listen to a low/no compressed recording that can have up to 30 dB of dynamic headroom (75 dB average SPL) or louder than he would typically listen to a prime-time TV show (70-75 dB SPL), 105 dB isn't an 'overkill' recommendation.

Guess we will have to 'agree to disagree'.

GM

105 db at the listening position is very loud, 95 db is what most would consider loud IMO..

Originally Posted by mondogenerator

haha the world would be a boring place without opinions! on this side of the pond, and in my experience at least, the 'Audiophile' thinking was against such EQ, including Bass and treble Pots....maybe im stuck in my ways but i still agree with that philosophy.

yes i still have a receiver with the function. its not as bad as most, since the eq is graduated until the amp switches from class A to AB, after which the control is defeated.

Agree , E/Q and tone circuits tends to colour the sound .....

Originally Posted by Bob Brines

And you speakers are perfectly balanced at all power levels?

Bob

Yes and easy to see if you measure @ 1W/10W/25W/50W and then compare the curves.


regards,

[Carlp]

105 db at the listening position is very loud, 95 db is what most would consider loud IMO..

Certainly even 95dB at the listening position is too loud for me if it's an average. But the point is (as the OP), I'd be putting maybe 1/2W max into the speakers (that's likely to be the max output of the amp) - avg output would be much lower. 105dB at one watt becomes much lower in my case (don't have the brain power right now to figure out the decrease).

GM's point is an interesting one and was not directly a part of what I was thinking about regarding efficiency. If I'm listening to dynamic music (I DON'T like compressed sound) then a transient might be loud enough with a speaker spl of 105, but overall the sound level might be inadequate. I'll be thinking more about this. I don't recall if most spl ratings are an average or a max. Anyone?

Anyway, I'm learning a ton here. Thanks all.

[borispm]

Hi Carlp, if the speakers are at 105dB/W@1m, it will be at 102dB/W@1m =] Not too bad really! More than enough dynamic headroom.

[a.wayne]

Originally Posted by borispm

Hi Carlp, if the speakers are at 105dB/W@1m, it will be at 102dB/W@1m =] Not too bad really! More than enough dynamic headroom.

It would be 93db/1w/1m at the typical listening distance of 3m

[GM]

Originally Posted by DaveCan

Probably something like his avatar pic or close

There was a time in my misspent youth when I had the room 'real estate' to allow me to indulge in multiple 80 ft^3 cabs, but kids have a way of sucking bank accounts dry and combined with rapidly changing traffic patterns and school zones due to Atlanta's exponentially expanding growth back then, we were 'forced' to move to one with more bedrooms/baths, but less total living space.

This forced me to cut the horn sections out, bracing them and adding wedge shaped compression chambers to fit them into the corners of a much smaller room and built the ~20 ft^3 cabs from the scrap as 'sub' platforms to perch them on. For a variety of reasons I switched the multi-cells out for dual stacked 511 sectoral horns and except for various experimental tweaks and the occasional electronics upgrade, that was the status quo for ~ three decades until Tom Danley offered the basslist Servo-Drive Contrabass kits to replace the 'subs'.

As 'clean'/'tight' as the Altecs are, the CB was at another level, being even more horn-like, making for an even better mate to the 70 Hz horns, but alas, life took a turn for the worse, forcing a 'fire sale' that got most of the audio stuff.

Oh well, wasn't the biggest/baddest/'best' HIFI system around, far from it, but I met my childhood goal of having true cinema sound (and then some, extreme bass/treble wise) at home and I did it without it impacting the family budget thanks to a cinema being gutted out with them only being interested in selling off the electronics part of the sound system; plus it spurred many to aspire/acquire/DIY similar or downscaled versions that overall matched or outperformed the factory consumer horn speaker offerings, not to mention the ever shrinking cone/dome speakers of the day, so a nice added benefit.

Originally Posted by Steve Eddy

GM's always done a good job of making others feel... how shall we say... inadequate.

se

Hopefully, the folks here understand that's never been my intention, though I have had the occasional email suggesting that I should spend my time with my own kind, i.e. only post on HE forums, and let others of a similar audio desire come to me/us.

Originally Posted by a.wayne

105 db at the listening position is very loud, 95 db is what most would consider loud IMO..

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree, 95 dB peaks is only 75 dB average for movies and older recordings and if one happens upon a less compressed recording, it pushes it as low as 65 dB to keep the amp from clipping.

Factor in that we set our own SPL comfort zone based on distortion levels and even 95-100 dB averages isn't too loud to many if the distortion is low enough, which can only be accomplished AFAIK by proportionately increasing system efficiency.

Some of the best 'candid camera' moments I've witnessed were those where non-audio centric folks would audition my system and let them set the volume since they assumed I was already mostly deaf from such a huge phallic symbol, with more than one woman wanting to know how many guns I owned, then at some point during the audition would turn to me to say something and the look on their face when they realized they couldn't hear themselves was priceless!

Even more interesting was that women tended to set the volume higher than men (measured ~105 dB avg./LP during a Pink Floyd 'Meddle' album audition, well beyond my norm and worse, causing some TT mistracking), proving my assumption to my satisfaction that women need to be the ones 'voicing' HIFI and now, HT speaker systems for all but pure 'man caves'. I'm convinced it would solve a lot of WAF problems if they had a system that made their style of music pleasing to them.

GM

[a.wayne]

GM that's 95db din, not peaks. when i did measure most listening sessions avg in the 82db-84db din range with peaks hitting 95-98 db.

At 95db din with Peaks in the 105db range would be considered very loud in an home environment IMO and i can believe the levels you state , as we listen louder when listening to a band for eg. Live unamplified instruments are different and very rarely do they exceed 105db unless you happen to be feet from the instrument ...


regards,

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by GM

Even more interesting was that women tended to set the volume higher than men (measured ~105 dB avg./LP during a Pink Floyd 'Meddle' album audition, well beyond my norm and worse, causing some TT mistracking), proving my assumption to my satisfaction that women need to be the ones 'voicing' HIFI and now, HT speaker systems for all but pure 'man caves'. I'm convinced it would solve a lot of WAF problems if they had a system that made their style of music pleasing to them.

GM

As long as the UI is user friendly ('n even men like that too - I think) and the system matches the decor.

[TerryO]

Originally Posted by GM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Snip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a variety of reasons I switched the multi-cells out for dual stacked 511 sectoral horns and except for various experimental tweaks and the occasional electronics upgrade, that was the status quo for ~ three decades until Tom Danley offered the basslist Servo-Drive Contrabass kits to replace the 'subs'.

As 'clean'/'tight' as the Altecs are, the CB was at another level, being even more horn-like, making for an even better mate to the 70 Hz horns, but alas, life took a turn for the worse, forcing a 'fire sale' that got most of the audio stuff.

Hi Greg,
The old "Bass List" crew certainly were something else. I wanted to get Danley's Contra Bass kit, but just couldn't swing it at the time. I wonder how many of those were eventually built?

Hopefully, the folks here understand that's never been my intention, though I have had the occasional email suggesting that I should spend my time with my own kind, i.e. only post on HE forums, and let others of a similar audio desire come to me/us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Snip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GM

I can't speak for most people, but your efforts to be helpful has been my understanding of your intentions. Too many people get caught up in their own niche and forget that the ultimate goal is the the most realistic musical reproduction possible...by whatever the means.
Very high efficiency is merely one of the better paths to that goal. It's been years since I've had horns, but enough of my kids have moved out on their own, that I may be able to return to my favorite type of speaker. Maybe this next Summer!


Keep up the good work Greg.
I, for one, appreciate all that you've done for the Audio Community over the last few decades.

Best Regards,
TerryO