6.5 vs 8 vs 10 woofer

oldhvymec,

You need to take a video with your cell phone so we can validate your approach.  

I fundamentally disagree with the notion that there is only one approach to any aspect of speaker design.  That someone purports to have determined what diameter is ideal for a full range driver, regardless of other aspects of speaker design, such as type of enclosure and type of bass alignment (bass reflex, open baffle, sealed box, quarter wave back-loaded horn, transmission line, etc), the type of tweeter to be used with that woofer, and a whole host of other factors, speaks to the lack of experience and understanding of the OP.  That this conclusion was arrived at by watching You Tube videos, adds to the folly of this assertion.

I've heard many different full/wide range drivers used full range, or with a tweeter or with a woofer or in three way systems, and there was not one single characteristic that was common to what I considered successful implementation.  Size did not necessarily matter, type of magnet structure did not matter, cone material, you name it, did not universally determine what was best.  Yes, I heard terrific 8" full range drivers, such as the AER BD 2, used in several different systems and the sound was completely different because other aspects of design were different.  The best application I heard of this driver was in a single driver, quarter wave backloaded horn system by Charney Audio (utterly amazing); another system where that driver was used in an open baffle system with a subwoofer was not as successful to me.  The very best system I heard with a wide range driver had a 13" field coil driver in an open baffle (the 13" driver operating full range (no low pass filter cutting off its upper frequency response) with a tweeter crossed in way up high in frequency. 

There are more ways to make a speaker system than there are ways to make lasagna--don't tell me that there is only one correct recipe, even if it happens to be the one I like.

Mozartfan,

Most of the speakers up to the early 1960's were high efficiency speakers.  In those days the speaker were quite large in size.  But, when stereo came along and television sets were also populating living rooms, it became important that speakers become much smaller in size.  The "air suspension" (sealed box) speaker came along to solve that problem.  These speakers were inefficient, but, solid state electronics came along that offered higher power in practical packaging.  

There has been a small revival in higher efficiency speakers and lower-powered amps, but, it remains a boutique community because the rest of the world places higher priority on small size (you can just plop the speaker on any table), portability, etc. and sound quality hardly matters that much.

oldhvymec,

I was not actually suggesting that you post a video of your system--I was making fun of the notion that one can evaluate the sound from a YT video.  But, I do find the description of your system interesting.  I like the way large systems, with a lot of square inches of driver or horn aperture sound.  They deliver a sense of scale even when they are not being called on to play at a high volume.  Your system, more than almost anything else I've read about, fits the "large" category. 

timlub,

That is a pretty nice and concise description of Thiele-Small parameters.  Of course design and implementation are vastly complex matters even when one stays within the proscription of these parameters.