Greg Belman of Bache Audio has perfected the use of wide band drivers
(covering most of the frequency range) augmented by a woofer and (super)
tweeter - no negatives that I can hear with any of his models. My
upgraded Metro 001's are extraordinary - 4" Tang Band bamboo wide band
driver covering 500hz - 9,000 hz is superb, as is the legendary, out of
production Japanese version of the Fostex FT92-EX2 tweeter.
About seven months ago Greg Belman emailed me to say that he had figured
out a crossover upgrade that would improve the sound. A couple of
months ago he emailed me to say that he had tested an Eton woofer in the
Metro 001 as an upgrade of the Tang Band unit currently in my speakers.
The Eton produced both deeper and tighter bass but required enlarging
the port. I asked if he could replace the air motion transformer tweeter
with the Fostex FT96-EX2 he has used in more expensive models, and also
rewire the speakers with Stage III Concepts (tweeter) and Dueland
tinned copper (wideband driver and woofer). Several weeks ago I finally
drove up to Brooklyn to take him the speakers. When I arrived I
discovered that he had actually built and tested a prototype with the
Eton and Fostex drivers that I could listen to and compare with my
current speakers. Needless to say upgrading those two drivers made a
significant improvement.
Still breaking in but initial listening suggests significant
improvements in sound quality. With the Eton woofers bass is
subjectively deeper, more forceful, and more articulate. I was told by
the designer that the Fostex FT96-EX2 tweeters, which extend to 33hz,
would expand soundstage width and depth, and that is what I am hearing.
Timbre is more realistic across all frequencies (particularly noticeable
with piano), and images are more naturally fleshed out with no
spotlighting. Every piece of music I've played has sounded more natural
than I remembered.
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Speaker designs with 5 or 10 drivers in one speaker doing the same thing is a dispersion disaster; the live industry (where multiple drivers are required to meet SPL demands)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I pkan to make some sort of
Wide Band Line Array
Already with the single DL Yellow cone 6 fills the room with pretty good (= high fidelity) sound.
But why stop there?
I have a DLVX8 arriving, see how that sounds, If acceptable , will go in the line array.
Just now ordered the TBW82145.
If that pulls off some magic, that guy will also go in the line array.
I was originally thinking duals,,but with another audiogon member giving 2 thumbs up on the TB2145,,I could not resist, but to order.
The 3 YT vids really made a very convincing display of the power of this driver.
I'm just hoping 3 speaker cables hooked to one speaker line does not produce static..
These WBers are very sensiti9ve.
They seem to prefer a single dedicated speaker cable.
As I found out with a 8 ohm tweet hooked to the same line as the Wder.
Place the wteet along with the W18's.
Static gone.
So the shootout will be twix
DLVX8/95db sens
vs
TBW82145/90db sens
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ATC has been hand building a very wide band device for a long time, the 3 inch mid dome. 380 to 3500Hz. I believe its the widest band mid device of its kind and gets around some of the typical midrange narrowing issues by using a dome instead of a cone. A clever piece of well thought out engineering. The incredibly powerful motor and dual suspension avoid some of the "deal killer" issues of earlier wide domes.
There is a very good engineering reason to get the crossover points away from the 750-2500 area where so much is happening musically. Wherever there are two drivers in different locations producing the same sound at the same level you have an measurable/audible artifact in level (the dip at crossover) and dispersion (the narrowing at crossover). Polars always reveal these artifacts while audible issues with "sweet spot narrowing" are typically traced to this same issue. Having these artifacts show up at 1K or 1500 is a significant problem. Speaker designs with 5 or 10 drivers in one speaker doing the same thing is a dispersion disaster; the live industry (where multiple drivers are required to meet SPL demands) have been working on this very issue for a long time. Its logical that some of this digital steering and pattern control they have been applying over the last 10 years will make it's way into consumer at some point.
A wide band discussion cant be had without mentioning the Manger driver, probably the best known wide band driver. I’ve heard one only a few times, and it didn’t compete sonically with a properly executed multiway loudspeaker in my experience. But there are many who love it so there is something there. It sure is interesting and one has the feeling that additional drivers operating at the extremes of the Manger could be a fun test to do.
Brad |
bass moduale on comp speakers broken,, still getting some bass in the tiny tweets..So I know you guys with better comp speakers are getting the punch I am not hearing.
So if anyone sasys,, **wide bands area compromise**, Just send them over to my uploads,,, That'll set the record straight once and FOR all time. |
OK figured out where the static comming from, Wide Band did like the tweet wires on same connect, Ran tweet back to Thor posts, where they belong Staic gone,, Not sure if I can run dual wide abnds per channel,,, maybe static. seems these drivers want their very own dedicated speaker cables.. Gotta ck with tech geek see how we can/might run dual wide bands on 1 set of speaker cables. Can a 6.5 WB make bass fq's happen? Here ya go Bass guitar riffs and drums sets. Sophie Milman's voice, accurate, smooth , authentic. Lifelike sound stage Vol no more than 8:45,,9oclock can't take. Still we have a room full of music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2qlzPVk0sk |
WOWWW
I am just now listening through my $10 comp speakers,, and I'm telling you, folks, thats **sparkle, shimmerings of silver** just sweetesttt highs you will ever find in any speaker,
Diana Krall's voice never ever sounded soooo smooth, so real, so accurate, soo authentic, super stage presence.
I'm blown away.
Ck out the smooth bass down to 45hz!!!.
Will the wood cone 8 beat this yellow paper mid 6.5???
Ebay lister speaks lil english and does not like to answer all my Q!;s.
So I can't know til it arrives,, Fridayish, maybe saturday.
have the cypress wood all ready to go for cabinet build.
WOW I;m impressd with the performance of this lik 6.5 NeoDymium magnet wide bander.
His 6.5 white cone Neo, he says, more bass (which I do not need) but not as clean mids (which is my only concern) is superior in this 6.5 yellow papaer mix.
His 4 yellow papaer mix, has bass, some highs,,but as i say, mids in certain fq's can get a tiny bit(more than I will accept) ..stressed. Impressive, but ~~No Cigar~~He only lists the 4 incher on his aliexpress site. He took it off his ebay site.
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jtcf1,192 posts08-23-2021 3:46pmHere's an older DIY article that I found interesting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Great find to support the validity of wide banders ability to make music come to life, like magical colors. Geek asks **So how do they sound?** **...unconditionally without rival*** may I second opinion as true with no hype. I have a YT upload finsihing any minute,,,, There is some static, as the Jadis DAC takes a full 20 minutes for the chips to warm up,, , I waited 5 minutes to make this shot video,,,btw cked the DL Ebay sire,, says these 6.5's hit 45 free air ,,and I have to say,, its true,, they start to roll off at 45ha,, its soft bass, but most certainly same level as the Seas W18's, which roll off starting at 40hz. Highs are indeed extended,, maybe 13/14k hz ish. has sparkle and sheen. Same sheen as the super Kasun paper 3.5 double magnet tweeter. So forget this idea wide bands have roll off on lows/ highs.. Thats simply not true for these new line of wide banders. Lets see how the video is going...... Ok hot off the press just loaded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0q4OpmnsRs |
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But for all another speakers based on wideband with no built in amps, we have to add woofer with crosspoint 500-700 HZ ( Metro-001, Tribeca-001 etc)
Conclusion-- Wideband driver get good ability just to work like midrange with extended freguancy response, and get choice to implement not regular dome tweeter , but supertweeter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think we have the Seas dual W18E001's witha 8.2 rolling off at say 1600hz ish,,87 db, really low vol especailly at low gain on amp.
All the W18's are really doing is adding some punch to bass guitar and drums.
Themn i havea Kasun 3.5 paper cone tweet, has incredible double magnets,, and kicks in witha 2.2 Mundorf cap at say,, 9khz ish, not sure.
91 TRUE REAL db sensitivity. Adds a bit of sheen.
The DavidLouis wide band 6.5 yellow cone,,has a range of like 80hz ish through say, 12k+hz ish.
Has some soft bass and highs NOT rolled off too early,, i real fine lil 6.5er.
My system has never ever sounded so super.
The thing that was missing was the ~~wide bander~~~.
DL 6.5 has a sensitivity at 91db, REAL TRUE BONIFIDE spec, Not a big fat lie.
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But for me, I've found the strengths of fullrangers/widebanders to outweigh the negatives. YMMV though.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly,, truthfully, of course its only my opinion..
But frankly, I don't recognize any such weaknesses with my wide banders.
None.
Only ++++'s.
As in
WinWinWin |
cellcbern OP55 posts05-07-2018 7:36pmHere is a paragraph excerpted from Laurence Borden's July 2014 review of the earlier Bache 001 for Dagago. I think it gets to the heart of the augmented widebander advantage:
"In a typical 3-way speaker, the crossover point between the midrange and tweeter is typically between 1 and 2 kHz, which is smack-dab in the region to which our ear is most sensitive. No matter how well designed a crossover might be, the tweeter and midrange drivers invariably differ in their dispersion characteristics, transient response, and distortion characteristics. Making matters worse, the crossover often introduces phase shifts. Although these differences are often not recognized per se (except in especially poor implementations), they become apparent when they are absent, as they are in a speaker based on a wideband driver. As implemented in the Bache Audio speakers, the Tangband covers the range from about 100 Hz to about 10,000, or almost seven octaves. Not surprisingly, they are superbly coherent. As a result, music has a wholeness — or oneness, if you prefer — that makes it seem more lifelike. One has a sense of being more relaxed while listening, a trait I find very desirable in a speaker. Not surprisingly, instruments that span many octaves — like the piano — are especially well served, yet all instruments benefit".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The info in this article correlates exactly how I am hearing the wide bander response in all forms of music,. Simply magical. When I had the Seas Thors over hauled with new tweets/new Mundorf crossovers,,, I was a bit disappointe,, So I ordereda few cheapo wide abndsers and started experiementing,, Thought I liked what i heard,, One day I placed a Thor on one channel, a wide bander on the other. WOW What a revelation,. Immediaetly I yanked out the new $700 Millennium tweets, listed then on Ebay at 60% off, sold in 2 hours, Took that cash and bought a superior wide bander,, The rest is history.. My projects have been all Wide Banders... I am near completion. A wood cone 8 DavidLouis arrives this week. Gonna stack both the 6.5 paper mix DavidLouis with the 8 Wood Cone DavidLouis.. All I can say is Mr Wilson look out.... there's a new kid on the block...and he aint playing... |
seanheis1460 posts05-06-2018 2:14pmNot many folks realize this, but you can stick a $50 wide band driver on a 48x60 inch piece of plywood (with just a hole cut for the driver) and get mind blowing good sound from a current source amp...and if you use the right driver you can get bass below 50hz that gives a smoother room response than a sealed sub.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is another forum where the topic is open baffel I dont care for OB's. I get more bass froma wide band is a small cabinet, small port at bottom. The DavidLouis 4 incher/mixed paper in a small cabinet, puts our rock solid bass down to 80hz. Thing ROCKS,,however midrage is a bit stressed, which is why i went with its big brother,, the 6.5. has bass, but different,a big less punch, but deeper/softer. I havea 8 arriving,, I'm hoping to get your 50hz, has a wood cone,,looks very promising,,Gonna run both 6.5 + 8 incher, like stacked Wide Banders. |
seikosha210 posts05-06-2018 1:57pmI thought the exact same thing after I converted to single/wideband driver designs I think the main reason is the ragged frequency response and the marketing issues this introduces. Buyers and manufacturers want to be able to justify their products/purchases with impressive specs. I’m past that, sound first, measurements second.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Absoluetly The only few specs that intere4st me is Most important 1) db sensitivity TRUE REAL sens, not fake. 2) magnet weign, magnet type,. I prefer Neodymium 3) Cone material, (Sorry german labs, your papyrus paper thin cone just won't do, no bass) I prefer mix paper and wood. All other specs/charts, graphs are just numbers,,w hich has nothing whatsoever to do with how a wide band ACTUALLY sounds in real time |
It's a complex subject, but the point remains that wide band drivers with all the requisite capacities are exceedingly rare, and pretty well all have shortcomings of some sort..
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Agree there are the good wide bands and then there are the poor wide bands.
Voxativ AC1A rates in the very poor category.
Some DavidLouis are nothing great, while a few of DaviidLouis,, IMHO are the best in the world.
2nd to none.
These DL's are relatively new and not well known.
I just made the discovery.
My only interest in wide bands are the davidLouis comming from some china lab.
Germany could take lessons from this chinese speaker tech geek.
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seamless. Yet my new Bache Audio Metro 001 speakers, with a single wideband driver covering the range of 400 hz to 10,000 hz, augmented by a woofer and a super tweeter, sounds different from all of these other speakers. The midrange of the Bache 001's is cleaner, more coherent, more natural than I have heard before. Music flows from the speakers in a more relaxed manner, and subjectively dynamic range is greater, with no etch or brightness, and no loss of resolution compared with the Merlins. I have to conclude that Bache's design has an inherent advantage over more traditional designs with a crossover point or points in the midrange frequencies. I wonder why more speaker designers haven't tried this approach?
cellcbern05-06-2018 9:47am
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes sir, This is exactly my very same experience of my wide band, assisted with midwoofers/+ tweeter. Magical and near perfection,,, Oh sorry to step on the old cliche **No speaker is perfect** So sorry,, let me rephrase the Iconic **most Holy* Dogma , nO speaker is perfection.. OK How s this *Near perfect as I ever wanta speaker to sound**. There, not perfectperfect, But as near as I ever hoped. |
My Bache Audio Metro 001’s are now substantially broken in, and my enthusiasm for them continues to grow. The imaging and sound staging now surpasses what I enjoyed with the Merlin VSM’s, and the midrange, which has opened up since I took delivery of the speakers, is even more clear, tonally dense, and articulate than when I started playing them. While the VSM’s BAM produced bass response down to 35hz, the bass from the Metro-001’s eight inch woofer goes lower, is more tactile, and can be felt as well as heard. The Heil air motion transformer, used above 10,000 hz gives up little if anything to the Esotar in the VSM.
I am not qualified to debate the technicalities of speaker design, but I have 40+ years of high end audiophile experience and fairly educated ears. I used the word "coherence" at the start of this thread but perhaps that term is inadequate to describe what I am hearing. To my ears the Metro-001s sound more relaxed, natural, and "all of a piece" than any non-wideband speaker I have heard, including every Thiel loudspeaker I have heard, and I have heard many of the models. |
The short history to design my speakers based on wide( full range ) First step-------------One driver no crossover Second step- Bache audio-001 remove whizzer core ( i realize after measurement and listening is impossible to made flat response just to add supertweeter and leave whizzer is on) and add active Sub, crossing wideband with 100 HZ crosspoint Third step-- I realize that wideband get poor ability to work midbass region 100-500 HZ ( baffle step) , Some Disigner to avoid this made very wide baffle (voxativ) I dont understand the ZU lover folks. The sound ( especially male vocal, lowest piano and punch sound thinner than real , http://bacheaudio.com/bache-audio-00...tereotimes-com We made Bache audio-002 to add separate midbass driver with active build in amps . But for all another speakers based on wideband with no built in amps, we have to add woofer with crosspoint 500-700 HZ ( Metro-001, Tribeca-001 etc) Conclusion-- Wideband driver get good ability just to work like midrange with extended freguancy response, and get choice to implement not regular dome tweeter , but supertweeter.
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If anybody who interested to listen widebands drivers coherence in different configuration just welcome in Brooklyn listening room
s |
I get the theoretical appeal of a speaker using a wideband driver - theoretical coherency and all that.
But in practice, I don't really find speakers divide up that way in terms of coherence. I find plenty of 2, 3, 4-way speakers to be quite coherent.
For instance, a couple of Thiel models I own as as coherent in the mids/treble and down as any speaker of my acquaintance. I can come beck home from listening to tracks on my pal's electrostatic speaker and hear no loss of coherence through my speakers.
(And I went from Quad ESL 63s to Von Schweikert box speakers and heard virtually no loss in coherency).
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Don’t forget about the Vaughn loudspeakers using widebanders with plasma tweeters coming in about 5k.
I haven’t ever heard them myself but I’ve talked to many around our country that have,and they definitely have my interest peaked.
Enjoy,
Kenny. |
To many offering such to list. |
Thoughtful, well written post from Teo_Audio. However at least one company - Zu Audio has made augmented wideband speakers enough of a "pull" product to be successful.
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I have a Feastrex Full range driver, 9inch field coil. It practically covers from 60 Hz to 18khz. I augment with a pair of subwoofers (REL) and Supertweeters (Townshend Ribbons). I agree with cellcbern that the midrange of widebanders offers something special compared to conventional multiway speakers and that's why I've stuck to fullrangers/widebanders for many years.
I think the issue is not just the crossover point but also the phase. Additionally you can't ignore that below/above a crossover point, the music is handled by different drivers with different impedances, sensitivities etc. Hence, its hard to get music to sound coherent as it crosses the crossover point frequency.
What you gain in coherency though you give up in other areas e.g. frequency range, dispersion, power handling and hence dynamics etc.
But for me, I've found the strengths of fullrangers/widebanders to outweigh the negatives. YMMV though. |
And in a two- cubic foot box they have quite satisfying bass - and high sensitivity, too! |
My mistake on the Altecs! They are the 755 series, with the 755A's being the most desirable because they claim to be built by Western Electric. I had a pair of 755E's. Not as rare, but still sounding fine (and a lot cheaper!). An excellent DIY choice for a 1 driver system. They particularly excell in the midrange! |
Another good design is the Silverline Minuet Supreme. 3.25 inch woofer crossed to the tweeter @3500hz. The little woofer can play very high and the tweeter only comes on for the highest notes, delivering the airy and delicate top end that a widebander can't. Crossed over to the sub @60hz makes for a really nice small room or desktop setup. Icing on the cake is that it's easy for a tube amp to drive. |
The W3 series, both ferrite and neodymium play out to 20 kHz. The neo has a flatter frequency response, but they’re both very good drivers. Going back to the OP, I think one of the challenges ( at least for commercial production) with crossing so low is that the crossovers end up costing more than the drivers. Re-capping mine with Mundorf Supremes approaches $500.00. But, I’ve built a few speakers with the typical 2nd order L/R at 2000-3000 Hz crossover- using pretty decent tweeters- and the wide banders come out on top. I’m not sure why—they just sound more coherent. And despite the fact that I’m using large values for caps and coils, the parts count is actually pretty low- not a lot of parts in the signal path- which might explain why they sound good. Some of these designs use a simple first order x-over on the woofer and second order on the FR. With impedance equalization you’re looking at maybe 5 components in the x-over, maybe less. Compare that to the parts count in a 3-way. |
I don't remember it all perfectly, but I recall that the 3 inch or the 4 inch Tang Bands either one needed to be crossed around 200 on bottom and their maximum usable frequency to keep within very tight tolerances was about 5k.... again on either 3 or 4 inch full range bamboo driver. I guess that I could have played with other models, but at the time, there wasn't a lot of choices, but from 200 to 5k, they were fabulous, easy enough to build a world class speaker.
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Here is a paragraph excerpted from Laurence Borden's July 2014 review of
the earlier Bache 001 for Dagago. I think it gets to the heart of the
augmented widebander advantage: "In a typical 3-way speaker, the crossover point
between the midrange and tweeter is typically between 1 and 2 kHz, which
is smack-dab in the region to which our ear is most sensitive. No
matter how well designed a crossover might be, the tweeter and midrange
drivers invariably differ in their dispersion characteristics, transient
response, and distortion characteristics. Making matters worse, the
crossover often introduces phase shifts. Although these differences are
often not recognized per se (except in especially poor implementations),
they become apparent when they are absent, as they are in a speaker
based on a wideband driver. As implemented in the Bache Audio speakers,
the Tangband covers the range from about 100 Hz to about 10,000, or
almost seven octaves. Not surprisingly, they are superbly coherent. As a
result, music has a wholeness — or oneness, if you prefer — that makes
it seem more lifelike. One has a sense of being more relaxed while
listening, a trait I find very desirable in a speaker. Not surprisingly,
instruments that span many octaves — like the piano — are especially
well served, yet all instruments benefit". Here's the link to the full review: https://www.dagogo.com/bache-audio-001-loudspeaker-review
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Timlub- funny, I’m using the 3” TB W3-2141 for full range duties. The 535 Hz crossover gave the flattest response without breaking the bank in caps and coils. I can’t discern the crossover point when listening, and the speakers pretty much disappear. But, it’s a challenge; I spent about 18 months with software, drivers, more filter designs than I can count and cabinet parameters before I got it right, to my ears at least.
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Hi guys, I've been out of pocket for about a week, just saw this.
@cellcbern up front, I need to say that I've never heard your speaker... But, I have played with this 3 inch Tang Band and it is very good indeed.
I agree completely with Erik about the 2K crossover point. In fact, might even argue that the 535 hz crossover quoted above could be harder to negotiate because it is clearly in the middle of the male and female vocals both. In the end, it is really up to the designer to be able to seamlessly integrate the drivers being used and as you have eluded to, many cannot make that integration.
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Here is a widebander that I think has push and pull....push because most speaker buyers aren't thinking widebander....pull because its got good reviews, budget price and support by decware...i haven't pulled (no pun intended) the trigger yet but I've been tempted!!
I own the Betsy. Pairs nicely with SEP or SET. With my REL sub it's tough to beat. |
Here is a widebander that I think has push and pull....push because most speaker buyers aren't thinking widebander....pull because its got good reviews, budget price and support by decware...i haven't pulled (no pun intended) the trigger yet but I've been tempted!!
http://www.caintuckaudio.com/check out the decware video http://www.decware.com/newsite/Caintuck.html |
Most importantly, if one is gong to SELL product to buyers, the product should be, as much as possible, what is known as a ’pull’ product, and never a ’push’ product.
a pull product is where the customer is actively seeking the item and pulls it from the company/store/brand. A push product is where the customer has to be actively sold the product by being convinced it is a thing to buy, and done by either the brand, salesman, store, reviewer, etc.
since humans are emotionally motivated, no matter how logical they think they are..and this is quadruply true in the realm of music reproduction gear, a business can go bankrupt in tumbleweeds and a ghost town of alack of customers... if the try to sell push products.
so we can have great products that due to people’s not being capable of being informed, or one step too far in their logic capacities/mental position, or simply so new it is not on anyone’s radar or ability to mentally negotiate, and so on.
then we can and do have reams and reams and reams of mediocre product that fits what people know and expect - and they keep pulling it out of the stores. People have a tendency to push buttons over and over, hoping that one of the newly pushed known and expected buttons will somehow work better than the last.
It’s all down to how the individual meat box approaches use of it’s rose colored glasses that all mental aspects are unknowingly filtered through and colored/altered/shifted by. (their individual sea of unconsciousness that far outweighs and far out powers their conscious ’voice in head’ thoughts)
a round bout explanatory way of saying that unknown and unrecognized speaker types will never sell and you’ve have to want to go out of your way to capture a tiny market that might not even be enough to make a living off of and might run out of customers quite fast once initiated.
Ie, that some may have a passion about a given idea in speakerworld...but ultimately it’s about selling product and putting food on the table in a stable long term manner.
And augmented full rangers probably won’t make the grade. Otherwise they’d be here already.
It’s difficult enough, even when you do have an fully viable functional winner in the ’actual new’ department, but that people don’t understand what it is.
Ie, we’re dealing with new technology that people don’t really understand. Even at the university and research of fundamental physics level. Mathematical models so complex they are unreachable. Which says nothing about the sound quality. We gain excited customers in the high end physics end of the audiophile pool, as they ’get it’ in a heartbeat, and they try the cable out.
But the rest of the buying public is so worn out by cable hype, and they don’t understand how freaking off the norm and how much of a break and change this is for the flow and sheer meaning of electrical function...well..it tends to look like just another space oddity in the charlatan end of the cable pool.
But when the physicists end of the buying pool looks at our cables they..get wide eyed and their minds wander and they quietly mutter "f--- me!! - mind fully blown".
A pull product for some, a push product for most. Product can also be legitimized by having competitors enter the market, and has the effect of making it seem more real and thus more customers enter the fray.
We patented a cornerstone in transmission technology so no one can follow. That’s how ’first’ we are across the technological/physics/engineering area that is involved. We are enforcibly unique by legal fiat. Which is part of why a well known cable manufacturer really did tell us that the high end cable industry did not like us, at all. That we were perceived as a threat to their existence, as they all knew that the next step in audio cables was literally in our hands exclusively.
One problem emerged. They’ve got pull products and we’ve got push products.People just aren’t getting it. Besides all the active attempts to make sure we are kept down. Seriously. People are strange. Especially when they sense a threat to their envelope of perceived self entitlement.
So, you can see...even good functional ideas that are backed by really good physics and really good sound quality can still crash or not achieve what they might in the minds of some idealistic projections.
Another part of it is if one has a product that is notably more correct but introduced in a market where where everything is ranging something like worse-to-wrong..you can’t gain traction, as people are living in an aura of doing things wrong, listening wrong, making wrong equipment choices and so on. So one can add the gear that is doing this far better than before but not have it match up to what the bulk of the market is struggling with and understands as music reproduction. Which is inherently working toward a fringe scenario, and makes for a non viable business model. That known phenomena about how the first company in a new item/idea/ area, is the one to break the market... but will die profitless as the market has to change first.
So, to survive in audio, one must produce what people expect and know ...and the bulk of the world is almost invariably wrong. This is a known phenomena. That the bulk of the given public is always wrong (the number is 97% of the public is wrong). To say so and try to change that ...is a quick way to financial and business death... so give them the wrong stuff that they want... and all new proposed stuff must be couched and clothed in the manner that the buyers pool project what the next step upward is. (ie, tattoos became the new unique thing over the past +decade. So now everyone is unique with their tattoos. All unique in the same way. right.)
And when you look at the most successful companies in the word of audio, that is exactly what you see. You don’t see cutting edge, you see what people, the potential buyers pool... thinks of as cutting edge.
Hope that helps explain why you don’t see much in the way of amazing and interesting gear out there, and that it never gains mainstream traction. As it simply can’t. It’s impossible. the definition of the center of the bell curve of the buying public is by nature one of mediocrity in both ideals and projections.
The long way home to dealing with the human (colored) logic involved in understanding that there is no real market for the OP's idea in speakers, even though it might be more correct.
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Altec 655's go from 60 hz to 12k hz with fairly even response and high sensitivity! Out of production for decades. Now wish I had kept my pair of 655E's! |
Gee...I wonder???? Henry Kloss had a classic quote "A Two way speaker is a good way to stay out of trouble" a no crossover speaker may be even better if well executed Andrew Jones is quoted as saying, "The best two way speaker is a three way speaker." |
Gee...I wonder???? Henry Kloss had a classic quote "A Two way speaker is a good way to stay out of trouble" a no crossover speaker may be even better if well executed |
Eric_squires—true, the diy community has been doing FAST (Full range Assisted Subwoofer Technology) or WAW ( Wide band Assisted Woofer) for some time now. My diy 2-way has a woofer that crosses over at 535 Hz to a Tang Band Full range driver loaded into a tractrix waveguide. The SQ is amazing and driver integration is seamless. Many designs set the crossover frequency lower, usually close to the baffle step frequency. One of the inherent challenges of these designs is the crossover component costs- you’re looking at huge inductors and caps crossing over that low—might explain why we don’t see more commercial designs. |
Eric_squires—true, the diy community has been doing FAST (Full range Assisted Subwoofer Technology) or WAW ( Wide band Assisted Woofer) for some time now. My diy 2-way has a woofer that crosses over at 535 Hz to a Tang Band Full range driver loaded into a tractrix waveguide. The SQ is amazing and driver integration is seamless. Many designs set the crossover frequency lower, usually close to the baffle step frequency. One of the inherent challenges of these designs is the crossover component costs- you’re looking at huge inductors and caps crossing over that low—might explain why we don’t see more commercial designs. |
Speakers designers which try to use wideband drivers usually get some
mistakes . First- to reduce distortion they shoud be works with
woofer with crosspoint about 500-700hz, integration with active bass
module become problematic and get issue , Active bass get crosspoint
up to 150-200 hz, and wideband driver get poor performance (buffel
step ), Sound become is thin. To integrate with tweeter we cut whizzer
cone ,I try to illuminate all this problem in my speakers line
Greg Belman Bacheaudio ( Sorry for my English)
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The on-paper interrelated issues with widebanders is distortion (resonance), frequency deviation and dispersion. I don’t know Bache, but I do know Reference 3A and Horning Hybrid. Both lines use mechanically rolled of mid/woofer in to a tweeter that is connected to a capacitor. Subjectively I did not find either line to be a standard of mid-high frequency integration, although I like them both. The most coherent box speaker I know is Voxativ, although there is penalty with roll off over 10k as there is a widebander but not a separate tweeter. (The experience is well worth the rolloff, imo and probably the money as well). There are brands with more traditional crossover points like YG (1.75kHz), ATC (varies) and KEF (2.4kHz) that I think are extremely well executed. Vandersteen also does an awesome job in integration using quasi-widebanders with 1st order crossover with the tweeter point at 5kHz. The former three though have better dispersion, though. There is a lot of variety in execution, and it is fun to sample them. It would be cool if more companies like Reference 3a and Vandersteen would execute minimal crossover designs with carbon fiber drivers. |
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Interesting idea seanheis1. I challenge everyone here to go out to the garage, grab 2 sheets of plywood and stand them on end in the corners of the rec room. Wait till the warden sees that! |
Not many folks realize this, but you can stick a $50 wide band driver on a 48x60 inch piece of plywood (with just a hole cut for the driver) and get mind blowing good sound from a current source amp...and if you use the right driver you can get bass below 50hz that gives a smoother room response than a sealed sub. |
ive often wondered the same question. in my car i have 3 way acitves that feature a 3" wideband driver made by hybrid audio technologies that is cspable of 200 to 18000 hz. it does not sound its best running like that but it sounds amazing using it from 400hz to 5000hz which gives you the keat of the music in a single coherent point source. it also allows the tweeter and woofer to run miles away from their break up frequencies and puts the crossover points where phase issues are easy to manage. the system sounds clean, loud and spectacular and i would love to have a home audio speaker with similar approach.
economics may play a factor because wide band drivers are typically lower sensitivity and multiple drivers may be needed in passive setups to prevent padding down the woofer and tweeter so heavily. still quite feasible and desirable though, imho. |
I thought the exact same thing after I converted to single/wideband driver designs I think the main reason is the ragged frequency response and the marketing issues this introduces. Buyers and manufacturers want to be able to justify their products/purchases with impressive specs. I’m past that, sound first, measurements second. |
Many of the most popular designs deal with the 2k crossover challenge in different ways. You may not realize it, but you are hearing the challenges of a crossover in the presence region.
It expresses itself as a lack of coherence, which can be discovered when you hear a good speaker that is not playing with overlapping transducers or is using a very simple, low sloping crossover.
Thiel, Vandersteen, etc. deal with crossover induced phase shifts caused by woofer tweeter integration by using a first order crossover. Omega runs their widebanders without tweeter support. Spatial Audio uses compression drivers that are crossed low enough to mostly get out of the way.
The above design examples create different compromises, but how they deal with the coherence challenge is a big part of their secret sauce. |
+1 bdp24! LFT-8b's might do the trick! |
I wonder why you don't make your own? :)
There's an ongoing, re-hashing going on at DIYAudio.com about the crossover in the midrange debate, again. Personally I'm of the opinion that there's nothing inherently wrong with a "low" crossover around 2kHz. As another DIYer put it, things were different when simulation and measurement tools were more limited, slower and expensive. With modern tools it is MUCH easier to get a seamless transition from one driver to another.
I listen exclusively to 2-ways I built with "low" crossover points and they disappear, with no trace of integration issues. You might also listen to Joseph Audio who uses this approach even in 2-ways.
The use of a wide band has ardent followers in the DIY community, so maybe you should consider looking into DIY'ing one for yourself. There are some interesting 2-way designs, called "Woofer Assisted Wide Band." where a single driver covers 400-ish to 20kHz.
There are significant sacrifices to be made in distortion, extension and dispersion with a WAWB, but there's no math to explain what you would like. You should listen for yourself.
Best,
E |
The Eminent Technology LFT-8b employs a pair of LFT push-pull magnetic-planar drivers that cover the 180Hz to 10kHz frequency range, without a crossover. An 8" dynamic driver in a sealed enclosure handles 180Hz down, and a ribbon tweeter 10kHz up. $2499/pr. |
