For my taste, the 756 with a tweeter is considerably better and more versatile (sounds good with more types of music) than the 755. |
It is great to hear about someone discovering something that is, for this person, new and exciting. But, it is unfair to declare that everyone else is ignorant, a fool for spending on something else, or a victim of a corrupt society because they disagree or like something else. I happen to like some systems with wide-band drivers and I've heard and liked Tangband wide-range drivers, but, I don't think others who disagree are all fools.
I don't know if it is an act, or a real belief that you have that you are making these amazing discoveries which the world needs to catch up on. I have my own amazing discovery, see what you think:
In the bathroom, there is this amazing device that has a lever, usually on the left side. If you push it down, swirly water appears in the attached cistern. This water tastes AMAZING!! If you are still drinking the water that comes from the tap, you are drinking CRAP. |
"revelatory"
I can understand the enthusiasm of someone hearing a different kind of sound from speakers that are not conventional boxes. This can be hearing a good horn-based system for the first time, hearing a Walsh bending wave driver, an electrostatic speaker, a planar magnetic speaker, etc. But, it is just silly to then assume that that new discovery is the be all and end all of sound reproduction. It made no sense to declare that everything else is a fraud and to dismiss other drivers that are similar in design and application without hearing the driver.
Someone mentioned the AER BD3, which was dismissed because the OP did not like something they said in their literature. I've heard the cheaper BD2 driver in both open baffle and in quarter-wave back-loaded horn configuration, and it is a terrific driver. Someone may prefer the MUCH cheaper Tang Band, but, they can only make such an assessment by hearing the driver (certainly not by hearing a Youtube video). I've heard two different Tang Band full range drivers (I cannot recall the model numbers) and I thought they were good, particularly for the money, but, if given a choice, I would take the BD2 i heard. I've heard several other full range drivers that would certainly be in contention, particularly the ones with field coils for their magnetic assembly. |
I don't think that the posted videos show problems with the speaker; I don't think it shows any merit to them either. It is simply the case that you cannot discern anything about the sound of speakers from a video. If someone is listening to the video on the very kind of speakers that are purportedly defective, how can the sound have been miraculously transformed by first being played on the WB speakers used in the video such that it now sounds good on ANY speaker? Not one bit of evidence on sound quality can come from a video. A description of the sound, particularly a comparison to the sound of specific speakers, is at least "evidence" of sorts.
I gather from your video that you put the Tang Band driver in an already made box that was not specifically designed for this speaker. While it is possible to get "lucky" (I've heard many examples of good sound from just such an experiment), you cannot know if your setup is ideal--there could be more performance to be had in a different cabinet, with different volume, port dimensions, cabinet resonant behavior, damping, etc. It does not help others trying to experiment for themselves if they don't know specifics such as the Thiele Small parameters of the driver, the cabinet design, specific crossover details, etc. It would be a miracle if this one-shot experiment hit upon the perfection that should put the rest of the world of speaker manufacturers out of business. |
I am very much a fan of wide-band drivers, particularly in systems employing them in multi-way systems where the wideband driver covers a very substantial part of the frequency range.
But, even among fans of this type of speaker, there is no consensus on what is better, much less best, and personal taste can dictate widely varying approaches to utilizing such drivers. At a local dealership that builds custom speakers, I heard a system utilizing a GIP 4165 driver (12" field coil full range driver). The experiment was between using that driver full range without any other driver, or using a tweeter at a very high nominal crossover point (first order high-pass filter to the tweeter, the 4165 driven full range). I preferred the two-way configuration, but, not because it delivered more highs or better dispersion, but, because I thought the upper midrange sounded smoother and less peaky. Most of the other listeners agreed with me, but, not everyone preferred the two-way version; the designer/builder preferred the single driver version. |
To me, the big takeaway from this discussion is the importance of using drivers that permit the crossover points being moved out of the heart of the midrange. I've heard one way, two way and three-way systems utilizing wide range drivers that permit this, and when properly implemented, such systems sound terrific. My local, Washington DC audio shop, Deja Vu Audio, builds custom systems based on this principle. They have one and two way systems using full range dynamic drivers.
But for my taste, it is their horn-based systems that are the best, and they employ horn/compression drivers to handle the bulk of the frequency range. Some of their systems are crossed over as low as 200 hz to the woofers and around 10,000 hz to the tweeters; that is a wide range being handled by the midrange drivers. Horns that can go as low as 200 Hz are giants, but, Deja Vu has some folded horns that are reasonably compact and can work as low as 500 Hz.
The BIG plus of both the horn and wide-range dynamic driver systems is that they are all very efficient, which means they can be driven by low-powered tube amps, another specialty of Deja Vu Audio (they make their own low-powered tube amps or sell brands that specialize in tube amps--Audio Note, Synthesis, Conrad Johnson).
Everyone who doubts that a wide-band driver can sound good even as a single driver system should make the effort to hear some of the systems made by Charney Audio, Voxativ and Cube Audio; they might change your mind. |
How did you arrive at the Avantgarde Duo as the only better system? I hope it wasn't via listening to a youtube video. I like that system, but, I don't think it would be universally loved by horn aficionados.
Also, how did you arrive at that particular amp in combination with that speaker as the best combination? Even if you heard a vast array of systems, it would be but a small fraction of what is out there.
How hard is it to see that your particular experience is extremely limited and cannot be extrapolated to encompass the universe? |
No, no, no. Youtube tells you nothing about the sound, much less the qualities you describe and the putative problems with nearfield, low level listening, and small rooms. I have not heard them under these conditions, but, I’ve heard many horn systems under these conditions and they excel. Horns are spectacularly good at low volume levels. That is why Japanese audiophiles love them in their small apartments with thin walls and requirement not to disturb neighbors (Japanese are culturally polite and considerate). |
Why horns? Because they can deliver a sense of "weight" and scale that few other kinds of systems deliver. When people talk about how small monitors, for instance, can deliver a really expansive and impressive soundstage, I agree, but, while the soundstage may be wide, one senses that the individual instruments are miniatures. One gets a better sense of scale with big speakers, and most horn systems qualify as big. Yes, good horn systems are expensive and impractically large in size, but they deliver certain aspects of performance that even a decent system using wide-band conventional drivers rarely can match.
I have not heard the biggest Charney Audio offering, so I don't know if it gets there, but, their smaller Companion speaker is the closest thing I've heard in the wide-band driver world to a good horn system; a friend who heard it liked it, but thought it did not have enough weight to the sound. |
