[Elecraft] Motorola Speaker VS Bookshelf Speaker ?

[Mike McCoy]

> Perhaps newer bookshelf speakers are more efficient.

Actually, in general I find just the opposite to be true. There are some
highly efficient (>94+db sensitivity) bookshelf speakers available but you
won't find them at the Circuit Cities/Best Buys, etc.. Unfortunately with
very high wattage solid state amps being the norm these days even name brand
speaker manufacturers have relaxed their engineering & designs in order to
remain cost competitive.  In other words, even the 'good ones' are now
mostly cheap & inefficent.

>The efficiency had more to do, I
> believe, with the acoustic design than the speaker driver itself.

You are correct sir.

>
> The 800 Hz peak in the "communications" speakers I found VERY irritating
> to listen to over time. But it did give the audio a LOT of "punch" in
> noisy environments (emergency vehicles with sirens running, etc.).  It
> was considered an excellent audio characteristic for that use, but that
> was for brief voice communications with good intelligibility, not "easy
> listening" by the hour.

I have to agree 100%. The motorola (etc.) speakers were designed
specifically for that environment and for that purpose I don't think there
is a better speaker to be found. I have one for my mobile VHF rig and think
it's perfect for the job. If you want/need an in-vehicle speaker by all
means absolutely get one.  But I don't think I'd want to listen to it in my
shack for any length of time. I don't even want to listen to it in my car
for lengthy periods... It's just too 'in your face'.

73
Mike - AD5IU