Why do Klipsch Speakers have such high sensitivity?

Nature vs. nurture. You could argue it is genetic, but I think it is more in their upbringing. Maybe there was no man in the house so the modeled the female from a young age, rendering them more sensitive. Or maybe they were abused as a teen. It's hard to tell without a full psychological makeup.

So how does Klipsch make you feel?

It's not deceptive. Although "distance and voltage are equal", the acoustic energy output from a speaker is a small fraction of the electrical energy that is put in. Speakers are very inefficient. So it's very possible for one design to be significantly more efficient than another. I believe that the fundamental reason that Klipsch can be more efficient is because of the use of horns.

Ed

Yep, horns are the most efficient types of drivers around.

I'm very suspicious of many of the sensitivity claims that Klipsch makes, especially in their newer speakers. Note that most Klipsch speakers use horns only in the treble and the bass and midrange are direct radiating: cones in normal boxes.

The way you make a direct radiator more sensitive is to increase the motor power and decrease the diaphragm mass. But this approach leads to the need for a large box to get deep bass, that's why the 99db Altec Nineteen needs a 12 cubic foot box to get bass down in the mid 30s.

Hoffman's Iron Law deals with the relationship between efficiency, box size and bass response. Simply put it's this: small box, deep bass, high efficiency; pick any two. No free lunch.

In the 1930s Voight had the notion that an ideal speaker would use the lightest cone possible with the most powerful motor possible. The result was the Lowther driver which makes terrible bass in normal boxes and must be used in a large rear loaded horn just to make mediocre bass. No free lunch, no siree Bob.

It dates back to the design philosophy of Paul W. Klipsch.

Klipsch has been around for a very long time, and could be driven to room filling levels with low power tube amps back in the day. They still can be.

Efficiency isn't a measure of quality, just a design choice. The horn compression driver certainly helps make them efficient.

Yes, they can play very loudly (I've been a Klipsch owner for several years).

I believe the way they design the crossovers help boost the efficiency and they also show there efficiency ratings for room placement instead of the rating they get in their anechoic chamber which adds a couple db from room gain.

With 6" woofers? They won't hit 117db regardless of power applied. Dynamic compression, nasty little secret of loudspeakers that very few manufacturers talk about.

Hi Tom,
How about 3 eight inch woofers and a compression driver, my triple 8's. JTR says 120+db's, not that I will ever play them over 105 db's.

They are vented as well.

MK--I dount it. Your 3-8s have less area than a single 15 and a single 15 is gonna have a hard time hitting 120db. Note that the JBL 2226, a 15" pro sound driver designed for high efficiency, high output and low compression, goes into "heat sink mode" just over 115db, it's taking power but giving little more output. Indeed, at 600 watts it's still taking power but output is going DOWN rather than up.

JBL Pro is one of the few manufacturers to address compression. Check out the spec sheet. I used to use 4 of those 2226s in my hi-fi to augment my big Altecs below 100hz

On the other hand at 105db I expect you're cruising along quite nicely, no strain.

http://www.jblpro.com/pages/pub/components/2226.pdf

Cone area is relative, a 1" inch tweeter has more output than that 15" at 10,000hz. The Triple 8 is 95db@1watt and handles 600watts program which equates to 123db program (not peak).

Klipsch definitely believes in fairly large construction. The cabinets tend to be large and heavy. And you can tell the bracing incorporated into the box is very solid. The whole box is extremely rigid. The motors are large, (and heavy), as well. Moving these speakers around requires some serious muscle power.

Efficiency is by no means an indicator of sound quality. With Klipcsh, it was part of the decision by Paul Klipcsh that dates back to the original design for his speakers. As Peter has indicated, Klipsch speakers has been around for a long, long time, and though they do come up with their share of innovative designs, (like other speakers manufacturers), Klipsch pretty much sticks to the original design concept and philosophical parameters of their founder.

I use my JTR's with a crossover at 80 hz. They don't handle the bass, my 6-18's do. I use these for theater and reference levels are 105db's peak.

I know this is a little off topic but the I wanted to mention something I read years ago about large woofer sizes. A Macintosh speaker whitepaper talked about the dispersion characteristics of various sized woofers based on the frequency of the signal. The paper showed that when frequencies considered to be in the upper range were applied to a large woofer, say 15in., the output dispersion became uneven. They came to the conclusion that most bass frequencies found in music had the most uniform dispersion using 8 - 10in woofers.

Where, in the midrange? They rate the speaker flat to about 30hz, you really think it's gonna make 123db at 30hz? And you're not figuring for compression either, nobody wants to figure for compression.

All that can be said generally is that a 15 will have narrower dispersion than a smaller driver as frequency goes up. Eveness of the pattern will depend on break-up modes which are not the same for all 15" woofers, it depends on the stiffness of the cone and the cones self-damping properties, things which vary wildly among manufacturers and models.

In most of these so called "white papers" the manufacturer uses a worst case example of the competition and a best case example for himself.

With the Klipsch new reference line, Klipsch'focus in the design of their drivers was exactly this. On the Klipsch board, the designer talks about hot the drivers were built from the ground up specifically to avoid dynamic compression.

If you compare the RF-63/83 to RF-62/82 you notice the difference right away.

These are the most dynamic speakers bar none, IMHO, at any price.

I have the RF-83s in a 17 x 35 room driven by Onkyo 905 and they get to 117 db easily without any compression or distortion.

Other speaker manufacturers have a lot to learn from Klipsch efficient design, which allows you to get very high volumes of clean, dynamic and undistorted sound, without needing a 1000 watt/ch amplifier and the accompanying dedicated 20+ amp circuits

LOL!



horny

All four of these speakers are from the Reference IV line, and utilize the same mid/woofer drivers. The difference in the RF-83/RF-63 is in the larger compression drivers, number or woofers, and some internal components. The difference between these and speakers from the old Reference III line, is pretty pronounce, specially in the highs and mids.

Just to be clear, the sensitivity rating doesn't at all tell you how loud you can safely drive a speaker, but only how much sound you get for a particular amount of amplifier power. A less sensitive speaker may well play louder without suffering damage as a more sensitive one is given sufficient power, but all this depends on the design of the drivers in question and how they're loaded and how well they dissipate heat, etc. A more sensitive driver inherently has some advantages here at a given SPL, but the sensitivity does not tell you that some speaker can play much louder than another in absolute terms at maximum safe sustained amp power to the speaker.

And as others mentioned, sensitivity doesn't really have any bearing on sound quality. All it really means is that, taken together with the impedance curve, you can have some idea of how much or little amplifier power you'll need to reach the volume levels you want. What we know here is that Klipsch is likely to get (and they do) loud with very little amp power compared to most other speakers. It doesn't tell you if it will sound any good though.

I beg to differ. The mid/woofer drivers appear to be the same, however, they are not.

The dynamics and detail clarity are an order of magnitude better, going from the 62/82 to the 63/83 - you only notice this if you audition them side by side as RF-62/82 are great speaker in their own right.

The mid/woofer drivers were designed from the ground up for the RF-63/83 - this is according to the designer himself.

RF-62/82 are not manufactured in the US, while the RF63/83 are (components and assembly)

This is obvious in the price difference between the RF-82 and RF-83.

You can see for yourself what the designer said here:
http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/9...43.aspx#989643

LMFAO! That gave me a good laugh!

Evidently you missed the link above to the specs on the JBL 2226 15" woofer which show it has considerable compression at high levels. And this is a driver of far higher quality than those used in Klipsch consumer speakers, one designed for continuous high level professional use with as low compression as possible.

The Klipsch speakers in question are hardly the "most dynamic speakers bar none". There are many speakers with better dynamics including some from Klipsch. Hell, your speakers have compression drivers smaller than small format, we won't even talk about large format. (Do you know what small and large format compression drivers means?) I don't know where you come up with this stuff. 117db with no compression or distortion eh? PWK had an answer to that, you know who PWK was doncha, and his motto?

There are many speaker companies with nothing to learn from Klipsch about clean, dynamic and undistorted sound. Start with JBL. And don't forget Edgar, you know, the company that inspired Klipsch to make tractrix horns. Ever hear a set of Edgar Titans? Altec A5s? KLipsch Jubilees? Don't talk to us about ultimate dynamics and loud clean sound until you have. Pictured are a few SERIOUS high output, low distortion and low compression systems. A ServoDrive setup using Tom Danley designed Unity horns and Contrabass woofers, my old Altec A5 rig with JBL Pro subs and Bruce Edgar's Titan. I took all the pictures.

Tom,
The triple 8's are rated flat to 72 hz. I have 6 18 inch woofers for 80 hz and below.

Tom

If you would pay attention when you read others posts, you would have noticed:

1) I said that the Klipsch RF-63/83 were the most dynamic speakers at any price IMHO. Notice the IMHO - this means my opinion. And to have an opinion, means speakers that I have heard (klipsch, mirage, paradigm, infnity, definitive technology) and not all and every speaker in the world.

2) We are talking about consumer speakers here. I would venture to say that less than 2% of the readers want a professional speaker that looks like something you see at a concert in their house (or things that look like your pictures) However, to each his own. If that is what you like then great.

3) I do not believe you have even listened to the RF-63/83s, yet go around disagreeing about their dynamics, compression and distortion. I have these in my home and listen to them all the time, thus can give my OPINION on them. I would not presume to speak about the JBLs you reference, as I have never seen them or listened to them EXTENSIVELY.

4) I ignored your link to the subwoofer driver as the question was related to speakers and not subwoofers. Subwoofers are a separate topic. Also, most of us serious about music and home theater use a separate subwoofer. I use Epik Conquest with my RF-83s. You can see it performance in the "craigsub" thread (18" driver, 70 lbs magnet, 2000 watts power handling, driven by a 1000 watt amp)

Again I think you loose the point of this thread. It is not speaker A vs. speaker B.
So please calm down and refocus on the objective of the thread.

Feel free to give your opinions on the JBL system, as obviously you own it and have a good basis to do so.

You should take care about talking about speakers you do not own, or have not auditioned EXTENSIVELY.

So please, do read others comments with care, before replying.
And please do continue to contribute with information about speakers (not woofers) that you are familiar with.

Were you at that Horn Convention in Indy back 5-6 years ago? Danley, Seaten and myself attended. We scared people in the hotel with the bass and shocked all those in the room with the dynamics.

^ Dude my wife would love that setup in our living room! She's so happy she has a shot gun for celebration (maybe?).

4-year old thread...

Hey, it's called the search button. damned if you do damned if you don't lol. I just couldn't resist with that pic. ridiculous.