It seems you read Romy too literally. He wasn’t saying speakers “like” certain genres. He meant high-order crossovers smear phase and kill microdynamics, which makes subtle music like classical suffer, while only loud, compressed music still comes across OK. It was exaggeration to make a point.
“It is impossible for any electronics (including loudspeakers) to favor a particular musical genre.”
But your statement is scientifically correct.
The problem with that argument is that it’s just a theoretical model. it means the author did not perform actual measurements on a real loudspeaker. Instead, he relied on a mathematical model and computer simulation, using assumptions such as the thermal capacity and mass of the voice coil, the cooling time constant, and the applied power. From this, he concluded that voice coil heating does not cause dynamic compression. The issue is that such a model only reflects idealized and simplified conditions, not the realities of loudspeaker use, things like imperfect cooling, airflow variations, mechanical limits, or very high SPL. In other words, it’s an analysis on paper, not real-world testing. That’s why the claim is overly optimistic and doesn’t match what real-world measurements and listening tests actually show. Power compression is well documented by
Stereophile,
AES papers, even
Wikipedia mention several dB of loss.
Not exactly. High efficiency speakers usually preserve both macrodynamics and microdynamics more effectively because they require less power and run cooler. Low efficiency speakers can still deliver good dynamics, if they have proper cooling and sufficient amplifier headroom, although in more controlled and less lively way.
