I purchased 5,-yes 5 Coral Flat 8 II's. Two of them are going into an Open Baffle system, the three remaining I don't know . . . experimenting with modifications maybe, or as spares. Two of them, the unmodified ones, had whizzers that seem like some child or pet or whatever had an accident. Nothing major, the whizzers are in one piece, only small dents.
Two of them had phase plugs and the last one is unmodified.
I got rid of the phase plugs since they where rubbing slightly against the voice coil/membrane. These two with their plugs removed were placed on the floor at an angle just to check how they sounded.
I was quite curious about the sound. Numerous stories that goes around about full range speakers: -Shoutiness ala Lowther, resonances and peaks etc.
There's two things I hate:-Midrange shout and shrillness . . . did I just buy five shouty and shrill drivers???
So, let's have a go at "Ein Straussfest" from the Telarc Record Company. This recording has no dynamic limit at all, and to make matters worse they've replaced percussion instrument with shotguns. If you want to shoot your speaker cones free from their baskets this is the recording to choose.
The Corals sounds dynamic (who would have thought), and those gunshots didn't bother them a bit.
What about female vocals? -The TV series Boardwalk Empire has a tune sung by a female singer that has a voice that rips the skin off your back.
Any driver that shouts or sounds shrill will make your ears bleed when playing that recording.
To my surprise her voice didn't cause my ears to fall off,-in fact it sounded great.
Next recording: The Louisiana band Tuba Skinny.
The female singer in this band sounds very nice, no shoutiness, no sibilance.
Everything I've read about the flat 8 seems to be correct,-that it is a very competent full range driver.
Next up is experimenting with finding the right baffle size for them.
