[planet10]

a) They typically cover approximately 7 or more octaves of the audio spectrum within approximately a +/- 6 dB range.  Typically something that handles between 40 and 100 Hz on the bottom end and approximately 14k or better on the top end

Just to be picky, 7 octaves up from 100 Hz is (100>200>400>800>1.6k>3.2k>6.4k>12.8k) is 12.8 kHz. 7 octaves from 40 Hz is 5k, 8 octaves is 10k.  9 octaves from 20 Hz is 10k.

The definition allows a driver to fall short by 2 and a bit octaves on the bottom, but only a 1/2 octave on the top. Drivers like the Pioneer B20, Goodmans Axiom 201, & Fostex FE207e don't qualify. Neither does the Radio Shack 40-1197 that got a lot of us started. Most of the 3" full-ranges fail to make the grade. If you go by Martin King's on-axis measures the Lowther DX2/3/4 don't qualify either (which probably means most Lowthers don't qualify). http://www.quarter-wave.com/Project04/Measurements.html

IMHO definition is still too restrictive.

dave

[jrebman]

Mike,

I split your Abby thread off into it's own topic as it was taking on a life of it's own and was straying a bit far afield for the intro sticky.

-- Jim

[chrisby]

Jim - my belated thanks for resurrecting this forum

the "compromises" proscribed by wide-bandwidth speaker systems,( for many of "us" frequently in combination with low powered SET amps)  brings to mind the following sentiments, recently and beautifully stated by Michael Lavorgna at 6-Moons:

Further, the attempt to apply that which we can measure (sound) to how we experience (music) is a faith-based application of science at best and flies in the face of the unrestrained listening experience. Yet by abandoning this quest for objectively better hifi performance, we have not abandoned the quest for higher fidelity as our passions drive some of us to a more and more musically engaging experience. With hifi we strive to create, not recreate, a musical event - inside ourselves.   In this sense, 'fidelity' refers to our hifi?s ability to trigger a musically engaging experiencing. Or if you prefer, we should recognize the fact that the value of music played through a hifi only becomes measurable once it hits our imagination.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/roadtour19/roadtour19.html

[jrebman]

Chris,  Thanks for poking your head in here and I sure hope we hear more from you.

Well, to my mind, Michael has hit the nail on the head, and absolutely beautifully.  But he's another N.J. guy, so what do you expect .

I was going to bring up this topic in some guise, and maybe I will and will start it with Michael's quote.

Truth and beauty -- the audiophile's dilemna.  I know where I stand.

Know anybody looking for some fonkensteens?   Love 'em an awful lot but really need to get with the higher efficiency thing.  You built one hell of a speaker here and people still remark about how beautiful they are and how "real" they sound.

-- Jim

[chrisby]

Chris,  Thanks for poking your head in here and I sure hope we hear more from you.

as my wife would say - careful what you wish for

Well, to my mind, Michael has hit the nail on the head, and absolutely beautifully.  But he's another N.J. guy, so what do you expect .

I was going to bring up this topic in some guise, and maybe I will and will start it with Michael's quote.

Truth and beauty -- the audiophile's dilemna.  I know where I stand.

this of course could be a Pandora's box, and here's a few random thoughts on opening the lid:   

"you can't handle the truth" - (i.e. that there is no single one? ) 

"beauty is in the eye (i.e. mind) of the beholder"

All sensory input is simply data until processed by that amazing piece of wet-ware inside our skulls. Some of the programming is genetically "hardwired" and for the most part universal and constant,  other is far more dependent on an individual's lifetime accumulated experience - which adds rather a considerable degree of variability.   


Every time I read the words truth and beauty in the same sentence, I'm reminded of my favorite family friendly Zappa lyric (there aren't too many of those on this album) :

Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is the best...
Wisdom is the domain of the wis
(which is extinct).
Beauty is a french phonetic corruption
Of a short cloth neck ornament currently in resurgence*

Hard to believe that was 30yrs ago - time to tune up the air guitar for another imaginary guitar solo



(* I still have pictures of the ridiculous brown & white polka dot bow tie and window pane linen wide flair pants I got married in)

Know anybody looking for some fonkensteens?   Love 'em an awful lot but really need to get with the higher efficiency thing.  You built one hell of a speaker here and people still remark about how beautiful they are and how "real" they sound.

-- Jim

PM sent on the last item

[ejfud]

Looks like I'm the new facilitator here. I have a few ideas on getting more traffic here, but welcome anything you all would like to see.

I've made the "Share pictures of your fullrange speakers thread" a sticky to keep it up top and so people just dropping in can have a look at some your very cool builds. I'll be adding a few more in the next few days. Please post in them as you see fit.

Thanks

[Freo-1]

Looks like I'm the new facilitator here. I have a few ideas on getting more traffic here, but welcome anything you all would like to see.

I've made the "Share pictures of your fullrange speakers thread" a sticky to keep it up top and so people just dropping in can have a look at some your very cool builds. I'll be adding a few more in the next few days. Please post in them as you see fit.

Thanks

Thanks for taking the mantle. 

I'm curious about these speakers.  I've always stayed away from them, as I could not work out how  they cold provide full frequency reproduction in a balanced manner.

However, some of them must do a pretty good job, or people would not be using them.  So, look forward to getting educated on these types of speakers.

What are some recommendations for research?

[ejfud]

Thanks for taking the mantle. 

I'm curious about these speakers.  I've always stayed away from them, as I could not work out how  they cold provide full frequency reproduction in a balanced manner.

However, some of them must do a pretty good job, or people would not be using them.  So, look forward to getting educated on these types of speakers.

What are some recommendations for research?

Thanks, should be fun. I've been messing with single drivers for years and love them.

Check out this thread for some ideas and search from there.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=76975.0

[Chikoo]

Grew up listening to Philips 8” full range drivers with a whizzer cone. Every music system with a crossover seems to be missing something somewhere or emphasizes some frequencies over others.

[Bendingwave]

DML's utilizing a single full range exciter with a response anywhere from 40-100hz for the low end and 14-20khz on the top end.

[Ixnay]

  For about 10 years now, I have been using single driver speakers, wanting just to get a point source down pat. Yah, I know open baffle isn't all like that, and yet OB was good enough for me, until... I found that mounting a full range driver in a horn design would get me closer to bass that I like to hear. Enter the Mark Audio 12P. I quit testing different drivers right after hearing it. Ok, and bass should be there because of the horn design, right? Well, almost. Yes so close, so I hooked up a passive sub and powered it with a class D amp. Another yes and no for me. It's mostly about integration, but in some things I am not a patient man, so then, maybe as early as Friday, I have a 12" servo sub arrangement from Rythmik Audio that may be the ticket. The amp that comes with the driver has easier adjustment than the Velodyne SMS-1 unit that I use now to correct for room bass imbalance and so forth. In fact, it is supposed to be automatic, BUT I want what I want. Yes, you can do all that with the Velodyne, but knobs and switches are better for my brain than programming on the TV screen (that's the way the SMS-1 can be set up).
  To my ears the simpler the setup, the more I like it. That's what drove to single driver speakers to begin with.

[JLM]

There is no perfect loudspeaker.  There I said/wrote it.  Single driver designs, like any other, offer pluses and minuses.  Coherence, efficiency, and no stinking crossover but at the price of limited frequency range, etc.

I commissioned single driver loudspeakers from Bob Brines 16 years ago: transmission line floor standers that use the "mighty" Fostex F200 driver (AlNiCo, magnet, rated 30-20,000 Hz, 8 ohms, 89 dB/w/m, 8 inch diameter with no whizzer cone, $575 each when last available).  Very smooth and full bodied with good detail but of course they "beam" above say 4,000 Hz and like any loudspeaker cannot by themselves address inherent in-room bass peaks/dips.  Note that I have a nice room: dedicated; 8ft x 13ft x 21ft; insulated; possibly over-treated; use Dirac room correction.  I listen mid-field (about 6.5ft away).  And I follow the loudspeaker/room interaction and loudspeaker measuring/testing teachings of Floyd Toole.

So over the years I've modded Bob's creations.  Added three carefully placed subwoofers to help address bass peaks/dips.  Removed the baffle step circuit to add to the purist creds and replaced with room correction.  And added "Late Ceiling Splash" ambience tweeters ala Duke LeJeune that sit on the floor behind the loudspeakers and are aimed directly upwards which help augment the highs and actually enlarge the soundstage so that the loudspeakers now sit 10ft apart without the centerstage sound stage collapsing.  The tweeters are basic Dayton Audio 1 1/8 inch soft domes connected in parallel with the F200a's with a resistor in series.

All this hardly follows the mantra of simplicity, but the resulting sound is most satisfying.  At least the rest of my system is simple: a NAD M10 "streaming amplifier"; a small one box yet highly flexible solution that is easy to use. 

[Ixnay]

JLM,
  I took a look at your system page and yes, that is the biggest reason that you can enjoy your system. It is the room. Nicely done, and yes, it will have some sonic issues to be addressed, but due to prior planning, many of the harder issues are dealt with.
 Simplicity doesn't always stand by itself if confronted with room nodes and the rest, so perhaps it is better to say simple as can be without excess. There does come a point where over processing becomes a plastic image that does not work. The psyco-acoustics involved are pretty funny to me. The brain will accept some kinds of errors yet other errors are taken too seriously.
 To put my thought together I will say that if satisfaction is the goal, attempt at flatness is only the first step in the path, likely to veer off in a direction that satisfies us as individuals, not machines.