"Personally, I love the idea of listening to a full range panel. Dividing music into multiple frequencies and drivers always end up with integration problems when everything hits the ears.... Jack'"
I understand. I've gone down the full-range path a bit over the years, and I love it for what it can do. I've also made that compromise over what I called "acceptable" bass. I've had all sorts of what I thought were great systems, and always found integrating a sub into them to be difficult and, in some cases, impossible. However, it was an "Ahah!" moment when I heard the horn subs, and then live cellos. It made me extremely aware of how much musical content I had written off as not really necessary for my satisfaction. I no longer want to toss off that low end as nearly extraneous. I want it the way the composer intended it, and the way the musicians played it. This may be partly because I don't hear much beyond 12K, if that, but a lot of it is that now I want to hear the whole piece, and to hear the bass notes rise along with the midrange and treble.
From the posts, it looks like there may be less treble with these panels, at least for some responders. However, that seems to be out of the range of most instruments anyway, and up in the frequencies that we think of as "airiness", "openness", or whatever. I don't think that should be too hard to deal with, if necessary.
A compromise I really wish to avoid is to have the lower registers squished into the background. If it calls for a sub cut in somewhere at the bottom, I think it is worth the work to try to integrate one. The panels seem close to fullrange, with some work maybe not even needing a supertweeter. At this point I am far too aware of the bass that was missing or compromised to give it away, even though it seems like these will go pretty low. I will have to wait and see what my feelings are when I get around to putting mine together. The major fact is that these are wide-range enough that whatever dividing is done will be out of the range of most critical hearing. If it affects the rest of the frequencies too much, well, we'll see. I understand what you are saying though. That describes most of my audio life. Compromises, always compromises. You pick what you can live with. Then, in a few years, you want more out of your system.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Back to what the guys who are building and developing these are coming up with. Far more interesting than my thoughts.
Take care
