The important thing is the diameter of the speaker. A 4" speaker with a wheezer cone can give a good sound. Check the Visaton model FR10. I bought a FR10 speaker from them (the 4Ohm model) and I was admired with the sound quality. And I only used a open baffle made of expanded polystyrene to test it (a plate with a 4" hole, to be more precise).A 1W little speaker is only good for playing the sound from a rooster, certainly not for music.
Although it as a sensibility of only 86dB/m (I agree that was low sensibility), believe me that a cheap speaker is far much worse. At 1W it is perfectly audible and gives a good bass (very good for a 4" speaker). I tested only one channel at 4W and was audible outside my house, which walls are not made of wood, I must say. So it was quite loud. The bass was reasonable too (of course it depends if you have an enclosure or not, even a simple baffle works). I often to the tests with classical music, that has a wide range of frequencies (lows and highs).The Visaton 4" speaker has no bass and the level of the highs is all over the place.
Its sensitivity is very low so 1W won't be much louder than headphones laying on a chair.
www.diyaudio.comAnyone know a good website on the physics of speakers and their performace (THD+N) with audio amps?
The speaker I've mentioned is a full-range. It is designed to have a flat response, and not an improved bass response. I would prefer a speaker with a flat response than one with a great bass response, but that is my personal opinion. Also, I don't hear heavy metal or hip hop, and I believe if I heard classical music using only a woofer it would taste horrible for sure (without the brilliant highs of the violins and the flutes). A far as I'm concerned, 100Hz is sufficiently low for me.I had RadioShack speakers with a 4" woofer and a pretty good dome tweeter in a sealed cast aluminum enclosure. They had much better bass than the 4" speaker you showed...
by Duane Benson
by Duane Benson
by Jake Hertz