Absolutely! And I can appreciate that Dave was merely expressing his own personal opinion. However I'm still interested in the specifics, particularly what he meant by "many aspects of speaker performance" in the context of the rest of his statement.
Omegas and other top single drivers do many things very well.
- "Coherance" - I'd define as the successful blending of the entire frequency range, single drivers have no issue with drivers in multiple locations or poor crossover performance
- Imaging / Soundstage - single drivers with the right amp and acoustic environment can provide an immersive listening experience that few multi way speakers can match
- Resolution - single drivers often resolve detail multi-way speakers cannot, this is a result of poor crossover components and/or drivers that are incapable of higher resolution. Once you have heard the detail that a simple, but high end, single driver system is capable of you will realize these details are absent on many systems, even expensive ones.
- PRAT - kind of goes with resolution... with no xover, a light cone and a powerful motor a good single driver can react very quickly.
That said, the last system TAD setup at RMAF did every "single driver" thing better than any single driver I've ever heard. But the system cost more than my house. To have a speaker with multiple drivers and a more complicated cabinet, but keeping the same quality as one driver and a simple cabinet, is going to cost more money. To build a crossover that is totally transparent is not easily accomplished and is not cheap.
Also, less expensive single drivers can make some unacceptable compromises in terms of uneven frequency response and other things, but Louis' design of the Omega drivers goes a long way to make these things a non-issue, the only other companies making single drivers that have been able to accomplish this cost a small fortune, like $2500 - $50k per pair, just for the drivers...