Dennis and/or Jim,
Can you describe the difference among the woofers used by SalkSound: Excel vs. Illuminator vs. Accuton?
Thank you.
Hmmmmm. Well, the illuminator is kind of an odd duck. It's waaaaaaaaaay expensive, and an awful lot of that is due to the beautiful machining that minimizes obstructions to the back flow. You never see that, of course, so it comes down to a question of whether you can hear any advantage to the elegant construction. It seemed like an obvious candidate for the open-back SoundScape cabinets. We gave it a try, but it just didn't have enough sensitivity. It would have been swamped by the woofer. The Accuton 3" midrange that we ended up with has extrmely low distortion and excellent dispersion. We tried an Accuton 7" woofer in an MT monitor, but the first unit shattered when pushed, and the second did the same thing. Can you say bye bye to $600?
The Excel really doesn't have any deficiencies once the breakup mode is suppressed. It's not a "warm" driver, but it is clean as a whistle and easy to work with. It's probably my favorite, followed by the Scan Revelator series in the 5"-7" size category.
