Lack of Efficiency

[Doom]

Anyone else here feel the cabinets produced these days are lacking efficiency? Or how about the same for amps?
I feel people are more focused on how much wattage an amp is shooting out and how much wattage a cab can take, rather then the SPL rating or design of the cab.

[IntrepidCellist]

Only time I see this is when people are throwing a kilowatt at a 1x12 and trying to compete with a fullstack.

[chucko58]

Amps (the electronics anyway) are getting more and more efficient. Modern Class D amps generate very little heat compared to the linear Class H and Class AB amps.

Speakers in general are extremely inefficient. Something like 1% of the input (electrical) power gets turned into sound power. It's even worse for low frequencies, which of course is where we live.

Cabs are a compromise any way you look at it. All else being equal, more speaker area equals better efficiency. But who wants to carry all that gear around? I think you're seeing a trend to smaller cabs as the speaker manufacturers get better at making long throw woofers, and the guys who used to lug "fridges" around get older and hurt their backs. (This is only half sarcastic - the original generation of SVT players is in their 50s and 60s now.)

[T-Bird]

Hi.

It's all about the voicing.

When SWRs first came to the market, the main gripe was IIRC their lack of power. On a bench thorse power sections did deliver as advertized though, and the very power hungry low frequencies were the culprit.

Pretty much the same for the cabs, voiced differently.

The efficiency, like chucko58 above said, has generally increased.

Also, some companies publish power ratings both on cabs and amps alike, that are not comparable to any standards.

Regards
Sam

[will33]

If by efficiency you mean spl? Sound coming out per watt going in. In the old days a lot of speakers did high spl because they didn't have it in the lows. Want lowend response the tradeoff is lower spl and/or high response. In terms of going lower and staying louder they're miles ahead of where they were.








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[Doom]

I just dont see as many reflex cabinets anymore. To me that's efficiency. Yes they are bigger though.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by Doom

I just dont see as many reflex cabinets anymore. To me that's efficiency. Yes they are bigger though.

At least 90% of the cabs on the market are reflex.

[babebambi]

a reflex cab is just a ported cab , rite ?

[GrowlerBox]

Where's that "I don't think that word means what you think it means" image when you need it?

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by Doom

I just dont see as many reflex cabinets anymore. To me that's efficiency. Yes they are bigger though.

Like BFM said, the vast majority of cabinets are ported. On the top of my head, the Ampeg fridge and it's siblings are the only non-ported ones that come to my mind. Ported designs aren't all that more efficient compared with sealed enclosures, providing that the drivers match the enclosure on both cases. Their size is roughly the same as well.

Horn designs however, are both bigger and more efficient than closed or regular ported designs. The manufacturing cost and relatively low demand makes them almost non-existant in the MI field though, save for a few DIY endeavours.
On pro-PA they do exist.

Originally Posted by babebambi

a reflex cab is just a ported cab , rite ?

Usually yes, different regions and languages, different words.

Regards
Sam

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

Ported designs aren't all that more efficient compared with sealed enclosures,

On average vented boxes (VB) are twice as efficient as sealed cabs (IB) in the low end. Below 100Hz the Ampeg SVT driver is 3dB louder in a VB the same size as an IB, and 3dB is twice the efficiency. And that's just at low power. At full power the VB has 6dB more output from 30 to 60 Hz, which is four times the efficiency of the IB.
That brings up the question: Why is the SVT sealed? The answer is: Because it always has been. The driver used in the original '69 version didn't benefit from venting the cab. The drivers used today (and for the last 20+ years) are completely different, the cab is not.