List of Reference Level, High Sensitivity & SPL Speakers - Page 10

Depends on your minimum threshold for output, and what amplification you're willing to use. (And of course what "musical" means )

But sorting by my price-weighted column, some budget stand outs in the $200-$500 bracket are the Mackie C200, Electrovoice ZX1, Klipsch RB-81, Chase Home Theater Pro10 and Sho10, eD cinema speakers, QSC K10, Axiom M50 and M22...

Strange that the Sierra bookshelf has an in-room sensitivity only .5 dB higher than anechoic? The Sierra tower reports 2.5 dB more sensitivity and 100 watts more power handling. Still not quite 105dB 12 feet anechoic, but I will add to the list. I would love to hear that ribbon version!

Great, thanks for checking on that. Tell them to add qualifiers for the measurement, especially since it can only be good. Even more ideally, they could list both, as Paradigm does. Even most ideally, they could add a footnote on how they measured / calculated it, as JBL Pro does!

Ugh, Triad needs to get their website marketing together.

Triad InRoom Gold LCR:
On product web page: http://www.triadspeakers.com/products/irglcr.html#

• Power Handling: Maximum power rating 250 watts
• Impedence: 4 ohms
• Sensitivity: 92 dB/1W/1m

On brochure: http://www.triadspeakers.com/product...e/irgldlcr.pdf

• Power Handling: Maximum power rating 300 watts
• Impedence: 4 ohms
• Sensitivity: 92 dB/2.83v/1m

So, which is the correct power handling?
What does the power handling mean in terms of RMS, Program, or Peak power?
And is the sensitivity at 2.83v or 1w?!

For now, I'll assume sensitivity is anechoic, the power handling is program power (usually double RMS, and half peak) and is the lower of the two numbers, and the sensitivity is 2.83v, so I'll normalize down 3dB.

EDIT: There are similar sensitivity inconsistencies for the other LCR models between web page and brochure.

I made another update to the second post which is an Explanation of the Reference Level Speakers List.

I now include explanation of all the columns, and I added explanation of reference level and why it matters.

Thanks! I personally use the peak spl calculator here: http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html, and it's probably the one most often referenced.

Play around with it using different sensitivities, distances, wattages, placements, and number of speakers, and you'll learn a lot!

Sure, let's take a look at your speakers, and I'll add them to the List!


It's a good question, and it probably was only mentioned in passing here and there in the thread, so I certainly don't begrudge you!

I consider the speaker placement where you're near boundaries to be the equivalent of in-room (where the level of sound is boosted in bass frequencies, and away from walls to be more equivalent of an anechoic environment. In reality, with a typical placement of being within four feet of one wall, and the fact that your room is NOT anechoic, you'll get higher SPL at your ears than what the calculator would suggest.

The sound you hear is a combination of the direct sound from the speakers, as well as the reflected sound from your room environment. Look around you at the room. Do you see JUST the light from light sources of sun and light bulbs and fire? Or do you also see light reflecting off of the surfaces? Of course, it's the latter, or you wouldn't be able to see objects. Sound behaves, give or take, similarly, where it reflects off the environment. We humans don't have the same facility as other creatures to equate the reflected sound to a mapped environment, the way we do with light, but it does affect our sense of space.

The reflected sound can be a major contributor to the sound power, depending on the nature of the room. A larger room will attenuate the sound more before it bounces off a distant wall and attenuates further back to your ear. A small room will reflect a higher percentage of sound to your ears versus the direct sound.

There are whole arts and sciences to adjusting the acoustics of the room to lower distortion and minimize detrimental reflections, while maximizing or improving beneficial ones.

Room treatments that absorb sound, like the common first reflection point panels, acoustic ceilings, your normal carpet and furnishings, and absorption behind speakers or on front wall all reduce the total sound power into the room. Room treatments that diffuse the sound break up planar waves of reflections into split up diffuse reflections of different directions and times, creating a sense of larger space and not interfering with the direct sound, while maintaining the energy of the sound power.

When I added just six panels to my room, I needed to raise the volume on the receiver several decibel (and then recalibrate with higher trims), and thus I pushed the system further against its meager limits. I need to send more watts from my amp, and the speaker is being tasked with handling more power.

So, to answer your question, a hard surface room with little absorption will sound bad, but it will mean your microphone would measure higher volume. A heavily treated room with absorption will force the system to work harder, but for multi-channel sound, it'll likely sound better, up until the point that you're beyond the amp and speaker's limits.

Most people say that reference level will sound worse in a non-treated room than in a well-treated one, other things being equal.

Also, although you didn't ask, sensitivity is often limited by the bass driver, especially in horn speakers like yours. Although with the addition of a 2" mid-range, that might be the bottleneck in this case?


One reason I use anechoic is that it can be more realistic for those treating their rooms' acoustics more generously. Another reason is that in-room might be interpreted by some people to be without treatment, and others near one wall, and others deep in a corner. I actually ran across one manufacturer that listed sensitivity with the speaker in a corner (and it wasn't a Klipschorn or Pi speaker!), and another that listed sensitivity with two speakers playing at once!


Well, the general advice is that if the number is not qualified, then it's probably in-room, since the anechoic number looks "worse." I'm sure you've read about the games that can be played in receiver/amplifier output ratings and how the FTC added some restrictions on their marketing, and how you're supposed to look out for the frequency range, distortion level, and number of channels playing. Well, there are no such restrictions on speaker manufacturers. Many play pretty coy, as I ranted above.

However, Darkwing11 in an earlier post about Triad said that he heard that the Triad sales people say that their sensitivity, while not qualified as anechoic or in-room on the website, is calculated as anechoic. However, then I found many inconsistencies in their specs, and I'm waiting for clarification, and I'm assuming the worst for now.


Lots of ways to interpret this. It's the best case in that if it was instead "in-room," then the anechoic would be even lower.


Hard to know what the peak power handling of these of speakers is, since they don't list RMS / Program / Peak. If they mean that the most amplifier you should throw at them is a 200w RMS amp, then their peak handling might be 400w.


Of course this only matters with respect with the goal. Is it reference level? At how many feet seating distance?


What does "value" mean? Since most speakers can't give you clean reference peaks, you may be judging the speakers too harshly.

Often speakers that have a low extension, like yours to 30Hz, don't do high output so well. There are tradeoffs. For home theater, I'd rather let the low bass be handled by subwoofers, where I can place them for smoothest response, and let the mid-to-upper bass etc be handled by the other speakers. We know low bass takes big boxes, big drivers, and hundreds if not thousands of watts.

Also, what subwoofers(s) do you have? If they can't output 115dB at your listening position, from at least 20Hz (lower if you're into infra-bass), then you're already down many dBs there anyway.

That's pretty cool, to show what you can expect to get for output. Thanks!

This was of some particular interest to me as I have some friends interested in their speakers.

Triad says they're going through a website re-do, and should launch shortly.

The PDFs are more trustworthy than the web page product data. However the power ratings are changed even from what's in the PDFs, due to some updated drivers. Sensitivity is anechoic.

Platinum
94.5dB 2.83v 1m
100-400w recommended amp (can handle > 1000w peaks)

Gold
92db 2.83v 1m
100-400w recommended amp

Silver
91 2.83v 1m
50-200w recommended amp

If you care about how loud the overall sound will be to your ears, you have to look at the program material, which channel(s) are playing at one time, etc. But that should only matter if you are assessing hearing damage for loud concert music playing.

If instead you want to assess the system's capability without regard to reference level, then you don't use more than one speaker. It's 105dB peaks per channel. So assess one channel at a time. I would actually assess the weakest link of the front three speakers.

If the sensitivity of the speaker was really in-room instead of anechoic (likely when they don't qualify it), then definitely use the away from walls. I always use away from walls, because boundary gain is for bass, but not 2,000 Hz.

Also if you've treated the room, you'll have less sound from reflections.

Last, and good news, is that your amp might offer another dB or three of dynamic headroom for brief peaks, ideally up to 200ms. This means the amp would be able to output 300 to 400w briefly. Depends on the amp, though. For instance, tightly regulated amps will have 0 headroom.

Yeah it will still be a few dB down from reference level peaks, but I wouldn't sweat it.