In the current Audio Video SA home entertainment buyer's guide I have seen almost all speakers rank in the 88-90 dB sensitivity range, and this seemed very unlikely to me.
I take as an example the Spendor s5e @ 87dB distributed by AV cables. Stereophile's John Atkinson however (http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/904spendor/index4.html) has this to say: 82.5dB (and remember this is a 2.5way 4 Ohm speaker so the effective value corrected for 8 Ohm is about 80dB@1W which is lower than the venerable BBC LS3/5 of which the same manufacturer makes a re-run).
The general trend seems to be to over-spec by 2-3dB with a couple of exceptions (both on the good and bad side of the straight and narrow). I suspect that this is done by the marketing departments who have realized that consumers have realized the meaning of efficiency beyond just another spec on their speaker and the increasing popularity of HT and its demands on dynamics. Is sensitivity be the second PMPO with values pulled out of a hat at random?
I take as an example the Spendor s5e @ 87dB distributed by AV cables. Stereophile's John Atkinson however (http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/904spendor/index4.html) has this to say: 82.5dB (and remember this is a 2.5way 4 Ohm speaker so the effective value corrected for 8 Ohm is about 80dB@1W which is lower than the venerable BBC LS3/5 of which the same manufacturer makes a re-run).
The general trend seems to be to over-spec by 2-3dB with a couple of exceptions (both on the good and bad side of the straight and narrow). I suspect that this is done by the marketing departments who have realized that consumers have realized the meaning of efficiency beyond just another spec on their speaker and the increasing popularity of HT and its demands on dynamics. Is sensitivity be the second PMPO with values pulled out of a hat at random?
