I was just curious, some subs I.e Kenwood/Cerwin have higher sensitivty subs 92db/94db etc etc, then you get like kicker who has 87.9 and what not? Is there a reason why some companies have low sensitivty and some have higher? and what's the advantagse of having higher sensitivity?

Thanks

This is a total shot in the dark but maybe sensitivity has to do with how effective the woofers are with wattages. MAybe lower sensitivity woofers are more controlled [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

Sensitivity is the measure of sound pressure of 1 watt at 1 meter. So if a sub has a higher sensitivity then it will take less power to get loud. This is in theory though. It's not always the case in the real world.

hmm ok cause I emailed Kicker asking why they keep coming out with new stuff but low sensitivity? the guy replied back " models that use high sensitivity usually can't as much power" then something along the lines of it all washes out in the end anyways?? basically saying high sensitivity doesn't mean anything [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img] I think the same was you do Gettnbig...would make more sense more efficient sub less load on the amp...

Sensitivity is a useless spec, it goes out the window as soon as you load the speaker into an enclosure, and put that enclosure in a vehicle.

So then if it means nothing, why do some rate at 92/94/87 etc if it pretty much means nothing? why arent they all like 70 for that matter?

please explain.

a higher sensitivity driver will usually have a lighter cone and suspension.. with a less efficient woofer having a heavier cone and stiffer suspension. Heavier cone usually means that it'll have a lower resonant frequency.

Sensitivity is measured at 1w/1m which means that if you take the speaker and mount it in a infinite baffle and place it in a free field environment (say an open field) feed it 1 watt and put a microphone 1 meter away, it will play say 72 dB. Which is great if that's a description of your vehicle and it's soundsystem. Of course most people's cars aren't as big as a field, they have more than 1 watt going to the speaker, and it's usually in some sort of enclosure.
When you take more important specs into consideration sensitivity is right up their with max power.
As soon as you start feeding a driver with some decent power you get things such as power compression that affect a drivers output way more. Just because 1 speaker has a sensitivity of 92 and another has a sens. of 87 does not mean that the more sens. one will be louder in an enclosure in a vehicle, which really makes it useless.

is that case also in high freqency speakers, say anything other than subwoofers, if so explain, if not explain, is sensitivity always measured with 1watt at 1 meter and is sensitivty frequency dependent, say sensitvity at 25hz being the same at 75hz and 150hz and so on