Originally Posted by
Beave
They have tested other speakers at much higher voltage levels (and much higher subsequent power levels, as those other speakers also have lower impedances) - and no damage resulted.
85dB for the Crystal Cable speaker required 8.74V input levels. The speaker's impedance is over 8 Ohms in general. So, as you stated, power would be 10 watts or so.
Now look at the tests for the PSB Synchrony Two B (another small bookshelf speaker with fairly low sensitivity of 84dB). They ran THD sweeps at 90dB@2m with a voltage input of 10.9V, and that's a speaker with a lower impedance than the Crystal Cable speaker. So even more power. Then they even went a step further and measured THD at 95dB@2m, with a voltage input of 19.5V. With this speaker being around a 4 Ohm load, that's way more power than what they did with the Crystal Cable speaker.
So why were they willing to play the PSB speaker at such high power input to it, but not willing to go nearly as high with the Crystal Cable speaker?