It is a good thing. The experience of the sound gets better because it is more exciting and involving, as tactile feel increases, and mechanisms of hearing deals with the louder peak transients in ways that affect how the sound is perceived. It is a consequency of how we perceive sound - though hearing and tactile bodily sensations - the sound as measured from the speaker is the same, only louder.
As I, and a few others have mentioned, it is not exactly the higher efficiency that creates this difference, it has to do with how the speaker radiates sound. Danley has made several excellent posts on this, in this thread (I believe I saw it in this thread).
This has nothing to do with stiction or other non-linear deficiencies in speakers. Once you have the capacity (combination of sensitivity, power handling and available amplifier power), the speaker can play loud enough, but some speakers simply do not create this excitement even if they have sufficient capacity.
It doesn't sound worse at lower volume - it sounds better even then. Because there is less "noise" from reflected sound.
it is so, that speakers that sound good when loud, also often sound better at low volume - they have a larger usable volume span.
Hmmm excuse by subjective doubts...
I have had speakers that were dynamic at low or high volume - and where the choice of volume did not impact the quality of the performance.
I have also had a number of speakers, where at low volume, they could best be described as beige... bland... nothing identifiably wrong, but, you sort of felt that they would be best suited for Musac rather than Music.... (Klipsch Forte III)
Then you plugged them into a higher powered amp and cranked them up a bit, and wow - they made you want to dance... the party was happening (depending on the music).
The Quad electrostatics and the Gallo Reference speakers are both in the "volume does not affect quality" category. (choose you volume to best suit your taste and music selection - and off you go).
My personal experiences with Horns - limited as it is...Klipsch Forte & LaScala - showed them to be in the "crank them up to make them sing category".
This was completely unexpected to me, as I was looking at options to run high efficiency horns with Tube or Solid State low wattage class A amps.... (at the time there were not many horn designs that didn't sound a bit "honky"... and were available in my neck of the woods)
My own listening told me that this was not going to work... though they were efficient, they still needed some serious power behind them, and they sounded best when cranked up at louder volumes.
I put the horns aside and moved to other speaker designs.
In terms of my own taste in music and volume levels - I tend to prefer things in the quieter range - I am not going to try to replicate a rock concert in my home. But I do want a full symphonic orchestra, to be able to reach its peaks at a close to real level... (so NOT that quiet, with the right music - but loads of dynamic contrast) - I prefer Eric Clapton's Unplugged, to Creame's White Room (although I do like both).
Other speakers I have enjoyed and respected included the classic Boston Acoustics A400.... which I recall managing to fill a Hotel Ballroom with sound during one audio show in the early 80's.... could play plenty loud - but a sealed suspension design, with dome tweeters, not a horn in sight.... and it could party equally well at whatever volume you chose...
Comparisons of efficiency of speakers I have experienced over "long terms":
Quad ESL57 93db/w@1m - great, but severely FR constrained, and loudness constrained
Quad ESL63 86db/w@1m - Fabulous, bass constrained - but what is there is wonderful
Quad ESL989 86db/w@1m - almost perfect speaker - if only it werem't so big (WAF fail)
Boston A400 88db/w@1m - Lovely, about the same size as the Quad 63 - the ESL does microdetail a little better
Klipsch Forte III 99db/w@1m - So much promise... but just doesn't play well at lower volumes - sure can party cranked up!
Gallo Ref 3.1 88db/w@1m - Sounds a heck of a lot like an ESL - but much more WAF (and kid) - friendly
My own experiences at shows, showrooms, demonstrations, and in my own home cause me to question a lot of the assumptions about speaker sensitivity/efficiency....
Focus on very nimble, low mass drivers (so small woofers, and suspension designs rather than ported...) mind you, I always wanted to try out some Transmission Line designs... never had a real chance. - Also experimented for a few years trying to match a Subwoofer to Electrostatics - without ever achieving a result I was happy with. (temporary solution was my move to the Quad 989's for a few years, to provide deeper bass using electrostatic ... they left my premises due to WAF - too big) All the subs I auditioned were best described as "too slow" compared to the rest of the frequency range provided by the ESL's. I think the responsiveness of a very low mass driver is absolutely essential - which makes low frequencies very very hard to do well. The suspension mounted 10" gallo woofer, is as large as I would ever want to get. And I would prefer a design like the Boston A400... with twin 6.5"... the Boston A150 had a single 10" woofer instead... and was not as "tight" in the bass.
Some of what you say seems to imply the speaker radiating from the box rather than the driver, as a means of better reflected overall room sound.... I found that I could quickly identify the sound of "the box" - and it bothered me.... some of the speakers I could sense "boxiness" with were very high end designs.... demonstrated in carefully set up private showrooms.... panels never had that specific type of colouration/distortion - and neither did some "Box" designs.... everything in life is a balance isn't it.... there are a number of speakers that I might have considered over the years, if it wasn't for the sound of the "box" - Bookshelves seem far less prone to it... Gallo's little nucleus micros, for all their limitations, have none of the boxiness... yeah they're a sphere! The large A400's, and the Klipsch Forte didn't show that particular tendency either.
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