Single way or multiway


The founder and builder of the highly respected high-end speaker company Gauder AkustikDr. Gauder, says that using a full-range driver is very bad. He uses 3- to 4-way speakers with extremely complex 10th-order crossovers consisting of 58–60 components.

In contrast, some other well-known and equally respected speaker companies — such as Voxativ, Zu, Cube Audio, and Totem — use crossoverless designs.

Who is right, and who is wrong?

bache

Showing 2 responses by avanti1960

It depends on what your listening priorities are.  

Each are capable of delivering high end sound quality with the right application and supporting system.  

Edit- there are very few truly single driver speakers on the market.   

@bache 

Gauder is not doing anything unusual- basically three way designs with near infinite slope crossovers.  

Joseph Audio also uses infinite slope high order crossover designs.  The main reason for this is that certain speaker drivers and driver materials that offer a higher level of clarity also have a limited useable frequency range because of distortion (see the link for the magnesium cone SEAS driver).  

these SEAS magnesium drivers are super clear sounding but have ultra high breakup distortion after their useable frequency.  in other words the output level after the low pass crossover needs to drop off in a hurry so that the breakup is not audible to the user.  

Many speakers have much less distortion and a wider useable frequency range and therefore do not require steep slopes or complex crossovers in their designs. 

 

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/8-woofers-6-to-8-ohm/seas-excel-w22nx001-graph-e0077-8-graphene-cone-woofer/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20727061620&gbraid=0AAAAAD_AChEl9-jLyIqCHzRzOKSmrWtEU&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-q_dhcjRjgMVrkd_AB1UrB8QEAQYASABEgJiXfD_BwE