Originally Posted by
jpw
If you make the cabinet smaller, all other parameters being equal, you would be right that sensitivity goes down and also right that systems have become smaller often due to WAF over time.
What I was asking, perhaps clumsily, was whether improvements in driver construction and design have allowed sensitivity to go up while maintaining all other parameters the same.
Over a 40 plus year period of selling audio day after day, I would say that it has (my guess was 3db). But that was more of a seat of the pants estimate.
dPrice's reply pointing out that the JBL 4312 is 3-4db more sensitive than the very equivalent L-100 it replaced years later, is the best objective evidence I have seen yet that sensitivity has or is at least capable of going up without sacrifices elsewhere.