In Reply to: Harry Olson's analysis posted by JonM on May 29, 2023 at 07:21:07:
Why horns have higher sensitivity, and why direct radiators have lower sensitivity, is simple: impedance. For efficient energy transfer you need a low impedance source and a high impedance load. That's the case with electronic devices, it's the case with speakers. The problem is that the load that speakers deal with is air, and air has very low impedance. If we could use very low impedance drivers, say 1/100 ohm, we could realize far better sensitivity, but at the cost of current demands that our amplifier technology cannot even approach. A horn is an impedance transformer, just like a transformer is in an electronic circuit. It better matches the high impedance of the driver source to the low impedance of the air load. It's not all that different than how the output transformers of tube amps match the higher impedance tube sources to the lower impedance speaker loads.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Harry Olson's analysis - Bill Fitzmaurice 08:34:36 05/29/23 (0)