What was old is new again

   The first loudspeakers were designed to be highly efficient. A speakers efficiency is described as the level of acoustic output delivered from a given amount of electrical input.. This was due to vacuum tube amplifier of the time only being able to provide a few watts of power. Loudspeakers had to be designed to play loud enough for comfortable listening from the low power available. The trade-off of maximizing efficiency is the speaker will require very large enclosures in order to play the lowest octaves. Explained by Hoffmans Iron Law, it states that out of the three variables of small cabinet size, low bass response and high efficiency, design for two and the other will suffer. This is why many of the speakers from the tube amplifier age of audio (1900's through 1960's) were usually large or didn't go very low in bass reproduction.

  The solid state transistor was introduced in the 60's and quickly replaced the vacuum tube in most home electronics. They were cheaper, more efficient, and capable of much higher levels of power output. This opened the door to speaker designs that were smaller and was friendlier to home decor. This trend continued and still is popular now, as almost all speakers now are very compact.

So why would I want speakers based on technology from a century ago? In one word, it would be dynamics. This is the ability to play all levels, from the softest whisper to the loudest snap of the drums without compression. Modern low efficiency speakers can be dynamic, but require huge amounts of reserve power to faithfully produce the peaks. To help explain this, I will use a average modern speaker rated at 90db @ (1m/1w) or 90 decibel (db) sound pressure level (SPL) at 1 meter using 1 watt (w) of power. To increase the SPL level 3db to 93, it would require twice the power (2w). A increase another 3db to 96db would require another doubling of the power used (4w). This is exponential. The amount of power to needed to play music on these speakers to lifelike levels can reach into the 1000's of watts. There are amplifiers available today that can provide huge power but sacrifices to sound quality are made.