Single driver speakers without the pitfalls?

There are MANY tradeoffs associated with single driver speakers, so that whether the offsetting positive attributes make them desirable is largely a matter of taste and how a system is used. The most common deal stoppers for most listeners is the limited bass response, peaky upper midrange, and limited volume level. I have heard some very nice fullrange systems, but, on balance, I have not heard one that I would prefer over a high efficiency multi-driver system. I have not yet heard the Voxativ system which I have been told is one of the best at overcoming most of the problems with fullrange systems.

What I have been very impressed with are systems that use one driver to cover a substantial part of the frequency spectrum. One of the best systems I heard had a Western Electric fieldcoil 555 driver that was run fullrange (not rolled off by a crossover) into a Western Electric 15A horn, with a tweeter filling in the very top of the range and two 18" woofers in a horn-based cabinet. The BIG downside to this system was the size of the speakers--it is like standing two Smart cars on their rear bumper in one's living room.

Another system that makes very good use of a wide-range driver is the Surreal Sound system. I recently heard their active crossover two-way system that utilizes a fieldcoil Lowther driver for the midrange and tweeter. Six woofers provide bass from a separate dedicated amp. This 99 db/w efficient system sounded absolutely fantastic and exhibited very little problems in the way of peaky or rough frequency response. I had previously heard a different system from Surreal Sound that used the fullrange Tangband speaker as the midrange/tweeter. This system sounded very good too, just not as good as the one with the fieldcoil driver.

I have heard a number of fullrange systems that use the Tangband driver. These systems sounded pretty good, particularly given the price of this driver. I bet a system designed around this driver as a midrange driver would be quite price competitive.

Rebbi,

Good luck on your build & blog. Have you considered some of the fancier build techniques that are described all over the internet for Audio Note kits? I know that some builders even go so far as to use the PCB to lay out the parts, but they then hard wire the circuit with wire that follows the board traces.

Another interesting thing that some builders do is to employ wire looms to hold wires together neatly instead of plastic ties. A friend of mine uses this "old school" practice. Note that other builders actually dislike having wires neatly grouped together because of the electromagnetic coupling (inductance) and prefer a "bird's nest" haphazard form of wiring. I don't know what is the "right" approach and would be inclined to follow the manual myself, but, I thought you should know about the lively discussions out there on Audio Note builds. For example, take a look at this discussion of wire looms:

http://www.mostlyaudio.com/PQB_Interwiring1.html

As I have described in earlier posting, I like fullrange drivers used as wide range drivers in multi-way systems. One of the best for such applications is the old Jensen fieldcoils with the built-in power supplies (e.g. M-10). That driver in an open baffle design, with a super tweeter coming on way on top (only crossover element is a high pass capacitor on the supertweeter) is quite magical and can be played at reasonably high volume.

I recently heard a VERY good, large, open baffle system with a 756 driver and a tweeter. I believe the nominal crossover point was 10k with a 6 db/octave slope. This system had decent frequency balance (light in the deep bass of course, but not as rough and peaky as most single drivers), and had the clear, clean and immediate midrange that is prized by single drive fans. I liked the system, but personally require greater weight for classical orchestral and choral pieces.

I have only heard a few truly full range single driver systems that sounded decent and most of them either had elaborate cabinets and were quite expensive (e.g. Beauhorns), or had breathtakingly expensive drivers (e.g., Feastrix fieldcoil drivers). Even then, for my taste, the immediacy and clarity and microdynamic excellence did not outweight some of the problems with sharp upper midrange peaks and treble peaks (causing raspiness and sibilance), and lack of bass and midbass weight.

Rebbi, if you are inclined to experiment in that area, for decent lower priced drivers look into the Tangband. I have heard a few surprisingly well balanced systems that utilize that driver in both multiway and single driver systems.