Single Driver Bookshelf Speakers?

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Kenneth Fernandes

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Mar 2, 2024
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In my view, the consumption of music at home is all about customized and tailored listening experiences, unlike in the studio environment.
This means the user could alter the loudness to his or her liking in the listening room. One way to do this is to separate the lows and mids-highs with separate volume attenuation.

Why single-driver speakers?
Not just a single-driver speaker, but with a frequency from ~100Hz to 20kHz and above. As the current speakers with two drivers can reproduce frequencies from ~40hz to 20kHz and above in one package. So, discrete volume attenuation of the bass and mids-highs is out of the question. This can only be achieved with single-driver speakers and a sub-woofer. Unless a speaker manufacturer comes up with a dual drive unit bookshelf speaker that has a starting frequency from ~100Hz and not from ~40Hz.
 

daveh75

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Single-driver speakers, I mean a single material drive unit too. Similar to the drive units of an over-ear headphone like the Sennheiser HD 560S and others in the line-up, but with a bigger size and specification that cater to a living room. (~120Hz and above)
For the low frequencies, they could be paired with a sub-woofer.
The ones mentioned above have two different materials in the construction of the speaker unit, a metal insert in the centre of the driver and a different cone material.
Unfortunately every one I know has this feature.
 

daveh75

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Was that the deciding factor in your choosing them?

Not the only factor obviously, but having made the switch from trad passive Hifi setups to actives years ago (with a pair of Mackie HR824 mkII) I would never go back.

(I'm a believer in there seldom being a single right way in hifi, and that the quality of the engineering is more important - but that's just my take.)

SQ aside* I've come to loathe the aesthetics of stacks of boxes, the spaghetti joining it and the furniture required to house/support it all.

Many actives don't solve that totally, needing preamps and sources and associated spaghetti etc, and often being aesthetically challenged.

However, my KEFs do (imo obviously).

They're small, discreet and a complete system requiring no extra boxes.



*I've yet to hear an Active setup I couldn't happily live with, the same can't be said for traditional setups...
 
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gasolin

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Kenneth Fernandes

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View attachment 6302
Yea, these have a solid specification and fit well.

However, I am thinking of a extremely thin single cone material, made of polypropylene or other thin plastic compounds. The driver surface doesn't have to be visible, instead, they are hidden away with a permanently fixed protective cover/grill and a completely sealed enclosure. And an accompanying magnet in their construction.
 

masterblaster

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Dec 5, 2015
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https://www.eclipse-td.com/uk/
TD510ZMK2_mimg.jpg


https://www.langeloudspeakers.com/products/yocto
lange-yocto-0522.jpg


And if you are creative with a DSP crossover and DRC you could switch real time between single driver and 2-way with these:

https://sunaudio.com/
db0ed901e0ef691e8ee9bbce20a5a6c8.png
 
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roaduck

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Jun 26, 2023
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Would you consider Chinese speakers ?
A lot of things are made in China now.
I ordered these for a friend last Christmas and he loves them - you can not hear the box and the image size is massive for their size; totally holographic.
You can hear what the left one is doing whilst being directly in front of the right one - eight foot away - very tidy sound quality indeed.
Without crossovers they are totally in phase with negligible overhang / smearing between the crucial upper midrange/lower treble so sound fab for female vocals and tenor sax especially - cat quick.
The asymmetric / not parallel cabinets minimise internal standing waves as well.
Specs are 45-26 Khz and 96 db/w efficiency - drop them a line to give you more info.
These are called Q8 from Aliexpress - add 20% VAT as well.
You might be able to get them cheaper from alibaba ; I`ve no idea.
I can get these from my local Chinatown and Chamber of Commerce delivered in about a month to UK; but you can ask for bespoke designs/veneers and faster expedited delivery for standard models too.
I used to flog bespoke and high-end Asian Hi-Fi in the nineties in Hong Kong and Macau - they were just cutting their teeth then - now they are mega.
I also have family in Guangzhou so I am abreast of developments.

Chinese high-end speakers go for £40K plus and they are World class now.

New Q8 6.5 Inch.jpg
 
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Deliriumbassist

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All this talk about single material (which really just seems like moving goalposts to me) - has this arisen from the Voxativ posted? Because if that's the case, that metal bullet is just a phase plug. It doesn't move. Its job is to prevent high frequency interference. There is precisely zero reason to discount a 'full-range' driver (or wide bandwidth, to be more precise) because of its inclusion.
 

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