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Hey Eric, give me a few weeks to finish up some things around the old apartment then I'll get my Lowther system set up again for you to hear. Maybe we can make it a small listening session with some of the guys from GAS. If you don't hear from me, post here again and jog my old brain cells. Mark
Thanks for the invite (picked up a pair of active Dynaudio BM5 Mk III monitors last summer). You should try to contact Scott F. (from here at Audio Circle who lives in the St. Louis area). He hasn't posted as much of late, but used to do single driver speakers.
Hi EricJLM is right. I was deep into single drivers but I've since changed systems. Blackmore is now the sacred keeper of all things single driver here in town. MerRev delves in on occasion as he bought my old Lowther drivers.These days, I'm doing vintage...or at least for the next few months until our house is finished.
Hi all,I see a lot of people using single driver speakers around this site. Why would one want that? Any one around here using them? I'm interested in some speakers for my 2nd system. They look pretty sexy, but what's the deal. I'm in my 50's, and I don't even remember ever seeing one in the flesh.eric
The world wide full range driver fans are just afew thousands of people which realized the historical error that are multi-way speakers, just a way to charge hi prices.Obviously you wont see single drivers loudspeaker in a hifi dealer as this kind of loudspeaker consist only of a raw driver and a enclousure, so the dealer have no way to justify to charge his abusive high prices due to the very low amount of system components and there is not a gleaming NASA technology that he can claim is too costly and esoteric.There is no even a xover since it is the origin of distortions, veiled sound and phases errors etcThe FR idea is one(1) small amp driving direct one(1) fullrange driver.
Due the limited power handling its ideal to a small room, as I like prog rock it need a FR driver suited to a big floor standing enclousure to offer some omph, which is some difficult to find, just at CommonSense by what I know.Also the right internal stuff is need to come alive the bass(no foam or sonex) I found great bass w/this blanket:This image is 5mm, I use 10mm.
So you've decided vintage is better than single drivers? Or just different? Or you just wanted to go down a new rabbit hole? Vintage is pretty hard to find, unless you like a restore project. Are those Dynaco's in your pic restored?
Its definitely not better. Just easier and most certainly different. OK, so here's the story:A while back, and for the best part of a decade previous, me and Blackmore were into 'single drivers'. In our world, single drivers weren't "single". We cut them off at around 150Hz and rolled in active 12" or 15" woofers (Altecs) below them with an active crossover and an amp. We weren't running the Lowthers "full" range, just "wide" range (150Hz to ~15kHz, no need for a tweeter above). The Lowthers were driven with SETs, usually 300Bs, 2A3s or 45s. The woofers were driven with anything from a pair of Antique Sound Lab Wave 8s to 55wpc AKSA kit amps.Here is a pic of my old SET/Open Baffle systemThis system was phenomenal. It did literally everything right and was unbelievably inviting but, it took up a lot of real estate and cost several hundred bucks a year to operate (read=new driver and power tubes).So I got a wild hair up my butt and decided to completely change my system to something much simpler (sort of). Here is a pic of my latest system:Since this pic, I've installed a new DIY rack and lost a digit. As you can see, I'm doing McIntosh and B&W speakers.So, that leads me to the system I'm using now. Here's a pic:So here is the story behind this system. Currently my house is under major renovations...renovations to the point we moved out. In turn, I needed tunes so I grabbed some of my old vintage gear that has been completely restored (all new caps and critical resistors) and tossed together a killer little vintage system. I'm using an HH Scott 299A (6BQ5) integrated that has both MM and MC phono inputs. I swiped the Merrill turntable out of my big Mac 'n B&W system. It's got a Denon DL-110 cart, soon to be swapped out for a Dynavector 17D Karat. Digital is a spare netbook with JRiver feeding the MHDT Stockholm DAC. Speaker cables are mis-matched zip cord. Interconnects are Rat Shack or something cheesy I had laying around and the power cords are...who knows... The speakers are ADS L780s circa late 1980s, un-restored.Best part of this system? You can't sit in the sweet spot. I've got it jammed in a corner and you sit off axis. What this does is it takes the gear right out of the equation. No longer are you listening to gear. You are now listening (and likely singing to) music. This system is all about the tone.... and it just sucks you in, plain and simple. It has plenty of detail if you choose to listen at that level but I prefer not to. I'm simply smitten with the sound. Something a little bass shy? Reach over an spin the bass knobs. Little short on treble on a dull recording? Twist the treble controls.Honestly, I couldn't be happier, in fact I was talking to Blackmore last night about selling all the 'audiophile' crap I've got and going with this system (or one of the other three like this that I've got). These things just take me back to the music, which is all I ever cared about before I fell into the audiophile trap. That typed, the Mac 'n B&W system just kills when it comes to the visceral side of listening. The little HH Scott system can't even dream of the slam that 450wpc of Mac power driving the 800Ds provides. It literally shakes the entire house....and I need that sometimes. For that reason, I likely won't dump the big 'reference' system, but boy it sure is tempting. The longer I live with this simple system, the deeper I fall for it.So, long winding answer to your question....we don't do true 'single full range drivers' here in town. Just wide range with big woofers to augment the bass. This, in my opinion, is the best way to do them.